Power Of Darkness
by Byproduct of Evil
Summary: One day during the summer Bellatrix shows up near privet drive and duels with harry. Now they're both in Azkaban. Apparently it was the first fic with a HarryBellatrix pairing here! COMPLETE
1. Chapter 1

**A/N: **This is an edited chapter. I decided that since the original first few chapters were crap I would rewrite them, and, when I told a friend about this plan, he convinced me to rewrite the lot. So here I am. And for those that don't know, this is the first proper Harry/Bella story, and the idea for the pairing was given to me by Nightwishsama during a conversation on MSN.

**Disclaimer: **No, I don't own Harry Potter, before you ask!****

**Power of Darkness**

**Chapter 1**

"EXPELLIARMUS!" Harry shouted, pointing his wand at the middle aged witch in front of him, who promptly dodged out of the way of the beam of light, sending back a cruciatus.

Harry dodged the curse, trying to ignore the aches and pain in his arms and legs, and the sweat pouring down from his forehead, the result of about half an hour of duelling with Bellatrix Lestrange, the dark haired, middle aged witch who was currently trying to curse him into unconsciousness. Bellatrix had found him, being on Lord Voldemort's, her master and Harry's worst enemy, orders to capture him unharmed. Harry had been out walking around the woods just outside Little Whinging, and she had sent a curse his way, beginning a duel.

"Stupef-" Harry began to say, running sideways to avoid her latest curse, and stumbled on a rock. Whilst it wasn't much of a stumble to an inexperienced dueller, it was more than enough for Bellatrix. Before he knew it he saw a red light speeding towards him, and then he blacked out.

* * *

Bella smirked triumphantly down at her fallen, unmoving foe. She had done it! She had brought down the Potter brat, the one responsible for Master's downfall! She could barely contain her joy at thought of what rewards the Dark Lord would bestow upon her - he may even give her the honour of helping out with the torture of Ickle Baby Potter. Slowly her smirk was replaced with one of pure insane, sadistic glee.

The boy would suffer. She knew he would. Her master would not let the boy get away with everything he had done to delay the domination of the wizarding world. Oh yes, her master would be pleased with her for capturing the proverbial thorn in his side. He would be very pleased indeed, especially after her failure with the whole department of mysteries fiasco.

"Put your wand on the ground, your hands where we can see them and turn around slowly," a voice behind her snarled, cutting short of momentary ecstasy of fulfilling the Dark Lord's wishes. The smirk coming back to her face, she obeyed what they said... in part, and that part was the last part.

"I believe you were told to but your wand on the ground and your hands where we could see them," growled one of the aurors, looking her over with an expression of disgust on his face.

There was about a total of twenty aurors all told, each and everyone with their wands trained to her chest leaving her with the only opportunity of escape apparition, something which she had never been exactly proficient at. Oh well, it was a challenge to say the least.

Her lip curled into a sneer, seemingly far more confident outwardly that she felt. She raised her wand, preparing to curse the aurors into oblivion. Unfortunately, the Aurors seemed to catch onto her plan.

"Shi-!" she started to say, but was cut off as she was hit by the same red light that had rendered the Boy-Who-Live unconscious.

* * *

Harry groaned as he awoke on a cold stone floor inside a stone cell with four plain walls, one window and one door. He was in Azkaban.

'Great, just great! Could my life get any worse?' he thought, not really thinking about what he was, well, thinking. If he had been he would have realised he had jinxed himself.

"Well, well, well," said a voice behind him and he span around to come face-to-face with his new cellmate. "Fancy meeting you here Potter."

Harry snarled up at the older woman, cursing both cursing the ministry for placing him in Azkaban, and fate for placing him in the same cell as Bellatrix.****

**A/N: **Review please!


	2. Chapter 2

**Disclaimer: **I don't own Harry Potter. Never have, never will.

**Power of Darkness**

**Chapter 2**

Harry rolled his eyes as he watched Bellatrix filing her nails. She certainly was as crazy as he had always perceived her to be. After all, who would file their nails in the most feared wizard prison in the world? Oh well, at least he had found several ways to annoy her during the past week, and that included what he was doing at that exact moment; banging his head against the cell wall.

"Will you stop that?!" snapped Bellatrix. "It's not only irritating, but it'll take away the very few brain cells you actually have, _and _it's giving me a migraine!"

Harry just continued. As if he would stop because she asked him. And she insulted him at the same time, so any chance of him stopping had just gone out of the incredibly small cell window.

So far the two of them had had to be contented with one another's company (and they were far from contented from it) apart from twice day when a guard came along with food for them, and for a short period the day after they had woken up when Fudge had visited them.

_Cornelius Fudge walked along the corridor in Azkaban which contained prisoners numbers A93DJS2 and O19ARY1, otherwise known as Bellatrix Lestrange and Harry Potter, as if he owned the place, which he basically did thanks to his position of minister of magic. The man's footsteps echoed loudly around the near silent and abandoned prison._

_He turned with a superior smile on his face as he looked into one of the few occupied cells in the building which contained one of the wizarding world's most famous people and Bellatrix Lestrange._

_"I always knew you worked for the Dark Lord all along. It explains so much," he sneered down at the two people inside, the younger of which looked about ready to kill him for that comment, and the other just looked like she was enjoying seeing Potter in ain from the comment._

_"I have never served Voldemort," Harry spat out, venom filling the boy's voice. "And I never will."_

_"Well I'd like to disagree with you there, Potter," Fudge said, smirking. "And so would the Wizengamot."_

_"W-what?" Harry stuttered out, hardly daring to believe what Fudge was implying._

_"Oh, didn't you know? The Wizengamot pronounced you guilty at your trial for, now what was it again? Oh yes, severely breaching the Decree of the Reasonable Restriction of Underage Sorcery, the Muggle Secrecy Act of 1792, being in the service of the Dark Lord, and several counts of the Dark Arts and the Unforgivables?"_

_"W-hat?" Harry stuttered again. It couldn't be true. He hadn't been given so much as a trial. It couldn't be true._

_"Oh yes, you were given a trial," Fudge's eyes were gleaming now. "But since you were unable to attend for... medical reasons the evidence started to pile up against you. It is rather unfortunate, really."_

_"W-what do you mean?" Harry stammered. He couldn't have just heard it. He couldn't be a convicted criminal. He just... couldn't._

_"I mean," Fudge said, chuckling evilly. "That this is your new home. You had better get comfortable too, 'cause you will be here for a long, long time."_

_Fudge walked off at that point, and Bellatrix started laughing. Harry just stared in shock out of the cell door. The entire world thought him a criminal - how could it be?_

* * *

Voldemort sat back in his throne in the middle of his meeting hall in his fortress. Life was good. Harry Potter was imprisoned in a cell in Azkaban for some stupid reason that he could make no real sense of - not that he cared - and the light side of the wizarding world was divided by those who stubbornly believed in Potter's innocence, and those that didn't, making it so much easier for someone to come in a conquer them. Life was good.

There was a problem though, but just the one. There was the whereabouts of his top Death eater - Bellatrix Lestrange. He had sent her on a mission to abduct Potter, and she hadn't come back yet. Hopefully she wasn't it Azkaban, even if it hadn't been in the paper.

There was a knock on the door, and Voldemort ordered whoever was there to enter, glaring down coldly as peter Pettigrew, the disgusting rat that he was, entered, trembling.

"What do you want, rat?" he snarled cruelly, making the man tremble even harder than before.

"M- My Lord, I- I think I know w- what ha- happened to Bellatrix," Wormtail said, sounding remarkably similar to Quirrel. "Sh-she's in A-a-Azka-kaban."

A cruel sneer came to Voldemort's face. This was fortunate, very fortunate indeed. He had been planning on attacking Azkaban anyway, not only to kidnap Potter, but also to free the few Death Eaters that were in there. This would just provide even more incentive.

* * *

In Azkaban, Bellatrix was thinking.

She was thinking about the fact that she was currently in Azkaban for the second time in her life, and this time she was sharing a cell with the Boy-Who-Lived, her master's enemy, and she didn't seem to mind it too much. Several questions sprang to her mind when she thought this.

How the hell had she ended up sharing a cell, anyway? She knew for a fact that Azkaban rarely placed more than one person in the same cell, unless it was at a time when there were a large number of prisoners, far too large for the prison, and that nearly never happened. Also, why was Potter, the one person almost the entire world adored and looked up to, in Azkaban in the first place? Sure, she knew that the minister seemed to hold a grudge against Potter (all Potter's, at that) for some extremely strange and immature reason, just as he did with her own family, but that was no reason to lock him away, was it?

But there was one thing that she was really thinking about (apart from when her Lord would free herself and others from the prison). How could one single boy drive her even more insane than the majority of people already said she was?! He was annoying as they came!

She smirked as she heard him stop banging his head Good; maybe she could get some peace for a while. But then again...

Tap! Tap! Tap! TAP! Tap! Tap! TAP! Tap! TAP!

Potter started to drum his fingers in some weird pattern.

"Will you stop that Potter?!" she snapped, hate evident in her voice.

"Why?" he asked, just trying to get under her skin.

"Because I said!"

"So why should I be quiet?"

"Because if you don't I will rip your head off and bathe in your blood!"

"Fine," he said, surprising her greatly at the fact he had actually agreed.

Of course, after a few moments of absolute silence it was broken again by Harry's whistling.

"What is the matter with you?! Can't you be quiet for 5 minutes?!"

"Of course I can. I just don't want to."

Bella started steaming at this point. The boy was so irritating! Oh what she wouldn't give to have her wand! Not to curse him with though. Of course not; there are many more painful things one can do with a wand... Like stick it where the sun doesn't shine.

"Why me?" Bella groaned to herself. "Why did I get stuck sharing a cell with him?!"

Harry looked at her, a look of absolute and utter revulsion appearing on his face.

"Well I'm not exactly ecstatic about sharing a cell with a murderer like you either."

Bella felt her heart clench painfully, but dismissed it as eating too much junk food, or whatever you called the slop they served up here. You certainly couldn't call it healthy.

"Do me a favour and kill yourself."

"I'd never do you a favour, and even if I did, it wouldn't be to kill myself. I'd rather watch you suffer."

"In that case you would make a good Death Eater."

"Don't insult me."

"Why not? It's so much fun! And why not join the Dark Lord? Everybody you care about either thinks you're guilty, or is dead. Like that idiotic cousin of mine."

Harry glared at her for her mention of Sirius, before replying to her second question.

"I'd rather die on my feet than live on my knees."

Bella sat on the floor, hugging her knees close to her, puzzled for a moment, before catching onto his meaning. Apparently the kid would rather die than join her Master at that moment. Maybe she could change that...

**A/N: **There you go, second chapter rewritten. Here are the original review thanks for the chapter.

**Nightwish-sama: **You can be annoying, you know that? Even though I remind you constantly.

**AlL rOaDs LeAd To HeLl: **Yeah, true. Also, only the author will too!


	3. Chapter 3

**A/N: **Another chapter rewritten, isn't this fun?

**Disclaimer: **Harry Potter is still not mine. This is probably a blessing though.

**Chapter 3**

Harry stared unblinkingly up at the ceiling of the cell. He was bored. Bellatrix had stopped getting annoyed with everything he did to get on her nerves. The entire place was boring, and what was worse was he had one of the really annoying earlier songs by the Wierd Sister's stuck in his head.

"What are you thinking about?" Bella asked suddenly, causing Harry to gape at her in silence for a moment.

"What's it to you?" he snapped defensively. Bella sighed. Teenagers were always so annoying.

"Well, considering the fact we could be stuck here for God only knows how long, I thought we might be able to talk to pass the time."

Harry stared at her for a moment, hardly believing what he had just heard. It sounded logical and, well, sane. Definitely not what he was used to hearing Bella say. Azkaban, when the dementors had been there, had taken away the majority of Bella's sanity. And when had he started thinking of her as Bella? Last thing he knew it had been Bellatrix or Lestrange!

Harry stayed silent for a moment, trying to decide whether or not he should, then spoke up.

"Stuff."

"Can you be more specific? Bella asked impatiently, or at least she started to before she was cut off by hissing at the pain on her left forearm.

Harry clapped his hand to his forehead almost simultaneously. Every time Voldemort called a meeting, which had happened several times within the last week, Harry felt roughly the same pain the Death Eaters felt through their marks in his scar.

Finally, the pain in his scar became too much for Harry to handle. Harry passed out from the pain.

* * *

Bella was shocked to say the least as she watched the Boy-Who-Lived faint before her very eyes, her still grasping her arm from her Master's call. This was the supposed saviour of the light side of the wizarding world, yet any idiot could see that he was just a kid.

For once in sixteen years she had been in the Dark Lord's service she began to question her Master's intentions. The Dark Lord number one aim at that particular moment was to kill off Harry Potter. Why would he want to kill off a child so badly? The boy wasn't ever sixteen yet. So a question came to her mind: Did she really want to serve someone who wanted to kill someone who was so obviously a child?

* * *

Three hours later Harry awoke to see Bella looking down at him from her vantage point of leaning against the wall with something akin to - no way! She could not be looking at him with concern! This was Bellatrix Lestrange, Voldemort's top Death Eater and the heartless bitch who killed Sirius, her own cousin! She could not do concerned!

"What are you looking at?" he asked, scowling at the woman.

The expression Harry thought may be concern, though he seriously doubted it, dropped from Bella's face and was replaced with anger.

"None of your business," she snarled.

"Well now I'm making it my business!"

"Shut your bloody gob!"

"Make me bitch!"

The two of them continued arguing for several more minutes until a guard, probably new on the job, came down to their cell.

"Will you two stop arguing already? You're driving the other prisoners even more insane than they already are!"

"No!" both Harry and Bella screamed in response, before turning back to their argument.

The guard sighed, walking away from them quickly. There really was just no reasoning with some of the inmates, especially those two.

**A/N: **There you have it. Chapter three rewritten. I hope you appreciate this. I am, after all, spending time on this when I could be doing something else.

**HecateDeMort: **Thanks!

**Padfootjr23: **Thanks for both reviews. I will go on.

**Aberforth Dumbledore: **EWWWWWWWW!!!! You had to get that idea into my head! You are right though. You do have a dirty mind.

**Nightwish-sama: **No, I do not have you confused with Alex! You can be annoying! Even if annoying can be good.

**Weasleysux: **I gotta say I love your name. So… great! Is this update quick enough for ya?


	4. Chapter 4

**A/N: **Another chapter rewritten, it's much better too.

**Disclaimer:** I don't own Harry Potter.

**Chapter 4**

Bella paced up and down the cell, taking care not to step on Harry who was a sleep, like she should be. It was the middle of the night, stars shining bring in the sky outside the window, and for some unknown reason she was unable to sleep, completely restless like she had been the last few nights.

Thinking about it, she knew it could be from being cooped up in a cell for a couple of weeks, but somehow she didn't believe that was true. The last time she had been in Azkaban in a cell very much like the one she was in then, she had hardly had had very little energy to spare, due to the small amounts of gruel that the prison pitifully called food, which were barely enough to survive on and not exactly what a person would call nourishing or appetising.

Finally, fed up with pacing, she walked over to the small barred window most cells had, something she supposed was there to taunt inmates with their lack freedom by using just a simple view. It worked most of the time too, helping to drive several insane even before the Dementors did when they had still guarded Azkaban.

It was definitely an amazing view. Truly amazing. The cell she shared with Harry was facing inland, and from the window she could see a stretch of water, the North Sea, though it was flat calm at the minute. Beyond that there was a beach, all covered in shells, shale and some seaweed. Next there were the cliffs, probably made of sandstone, or something very similar. And then… And then there were many, many miles of fields, stretching out as far as the eye could see, each separated by hedges, or muggle roads, possibly a few rivers and steams.

To the south she could just make out a large wood, to the North she could see a farm. But straight ahead were fields, and, eventually, if one was to go far enough, freedom.

But nothing in this view, this truly magnificent view, could assist her in figuring out why she could not sleep. There were a great number of problems that could be causing it. The first the sprung to mind was that she had missed several Death Eater meetings since her imprisonment.

That genuinely was something. In all of her time as a Death Eater she had only ever missed meetings when she had been on a mission for her master or when he had first come back, and had been incarcerated at the time. Other than that, she hadn't missed any, even when she had barely been well enough to get out of bed let alone face possible torture for misdemeanours.

Maybe it was being cooped up inside a cell for so long. After all, the gruel had improved slightly (so now it has some sugar, rather than just porridge without milk, just water!) so it gave them more energy, more energy which could be used for the only pastime there was in Azkaban, wishing for freedom and staring out of the bars on the cell windows. But no, it wasn't that.

It was a possibility that she was so restless because this time she was locked up with someone be an ounce of intellect, rather than across the corridor from a pair of total idiots like her husband, Rodulphus, and his brother, Rabastan, who were as brainless as it was possible to be without going into Crabbe and Goyle ignorance levels. The only reason she had married Rodulphus in the first place was because he was a pureblood and her parents had arranged it when they had both been young.

But if that were the case, shouldn't she be more tired from talking with Harry all day, not less? No, that couldn't be the case.

What was wrong with her? It wasn't just that she was restless and wide awake, but it was also the fact that she almost didn't want things to go back to how they had been before she had been imprisoned with Harry, she almost wished the Dark Lord wouldn't come and get her.

That was yet another thing that was bothering her. At the start of their imprisonment together she had called him Potter not just out loud, but in her mind as well. Now he was Potter only out loud, being Harry in her mind. What had taken place to change that? Why had whatever had taken place to change it taken place? She certainly didn't want it to happen... did she? But even as she thought this, she knew, deep down what the answer was, though it was buried far deeper that she was willing to delve at that point, so there was no point in worrying about it. It was probably something stupid, something unnecessary, and something someone could live without.

Finally having enough, she lay down on the floor (there being no beds in the prison) and curled up, a sigh escaping from her lips. Maybe it wasn't to do with Harry. She just didn't know anymore. There was too much going on in her mind.

The next couple of days were dreadfully boring in Azkaban, there being the usual schedule of breakfast and dinner at their allotted times and nothing else until the third Wednesday they spent together in the confines of their cell when something that had only ever happened once before happened again.

**A/N: **Another chapter redone. I hope you lot like it, because it's a whole lot longer. I think.

**Goten-Lupin: **I know they are. I hope this chapter's soon enough for you.

**Ryua Malfoy: **Anything's possible in the realm of Fanfiction. Hopefully I should get the softer side of the Death Eater's in.

**Gaul1: **Thanks

**Lady Sakura: **Thanks too.

**Launigsiae: **I know! I totally need more of this pairing!

**The Vampire Story Hunter: **Nice name! And I am trying to make the chapters longer, it's just harder nowadays for me to do so. And are you positive there are no others at all? None?

**INMH: **Thanks, I would never do such thing in a fic where Bella's the main character, and finally here's more (if you're confused they're in the order of your points in the review)

**Pegeuk: **I am? Dang! I need to see more of this pairing!

**Vegita43: **Nice hint…

**Shadowface: **K, I'll try.

**Padfootjr23: **Why is it that fics where Harry is in Azkaban are so fun to read?

Okay, one more thing before I put this up. If anyone knows a link to any other Harry/Bella fic (it doesn't have to be here on , it could be on any site at all) and would be kind enough to give me the link I would end up worshipping them (okay, I'm officially obsessed with this pairing).


	5. Chapter 5

**A/N:** Another chapter rewritten, fun, isn't this?

**Disclaimer: **I don't own Harry Potter.

**Chapter 5**

Harry gasped and rushed to the cell door as he scar filled with pain and a loud commotion came from somewhere else in the prison. This couldn't be happening; Azkaban could not have been broken into for the second time in history! It just... couldn't!

During the last two or three days Voldemort hadn't called any meetings, or even used the connection between the two of them to cause Harry pain. Under any other circumstances, Harry would have been relieved, but not this time. This time he had been sure Voldemort had been planning something, and it looked as if he had been right.

Everywhere in the prison was absolute chaos. There Death Eaters left, right and centre, killing the prison guards and aurors, and freeing the prisoners, only to kill the ones that weren't Death Eaters in some sort of sick bloodlust. Finally, Death Eaters got to Harry and Bella's cell, in the company of Voldemort himself.

Bella bowed to the madman immediately, before backing away into the ranks of the Death Eaters and freed prisoners, whilst just two of them held Harry back, stopping him from attacking Voldemort or anyone else.

"Well, well, well," Voldemort hissed. "Harry Potter."

"Voldemort," Harry spat in greeting, glaring at the Dark Lord and attempting to break free as soon as possible. Voldemort chuckled.

"I never would have thought I would be seeing you in a place like this," Voldemort sneered. "However, since you are here, I may as well offer you a chance to join me, as I've done before. You remember the last time I offered you this chance, don't you Harry?"

Harry glared full out at Voldemort. Oh he remembered when Voldemort had offered him the chance to become a Death Eater when he had gone after the Philosophers' Stone alright. Fortunately he had refused that time, and he would this time too.

"I will never join you," Harry growled, struggling once again. Voldemort, as if just noticing this, turned to the Death Eaters holding him.

"Do not let go of him if you value your lives."

"Yes, My Lord."

"Of course My Lord."

Voldemort turned back to Harry, a sadistic smile on his face.

"Harry, Harry, Harry. Never is a long time. You could save yourself a lot of pain if you were to join me now. So what do you say?"

Harry glared at Voldemort, and then spat at him. Voldemort wiped away the spit, a look of utter disgust on his face.

"If that is your answer," Voldemort paused, and looked to Harry, who still looked defiant. "Avada Ked-"

"My Lord!" Bella called out suddenly, not really knowing why. Voldemort's eyes narrowed cruelly.

"_What is it Bellatrix?!"_

"My Lord," Bella gulped nervously again, facing the Dark Lord's furious eyes. "Perhaps it would be more profitable to convince Potter to join you than to kill him."

"Unless you haven't noticed, _Bella, _Potter has just refused to join me."

"But My Lord!" Bella persisted, making Voldemort turn his attention from Harry again. Okay, this was the first time she had ever begun to doubt her own sanity. "Surely Potter could be persuaded in a place where you had the upper hand?"

Voldemort's face was filled with a thoughtful expression for a moment, and then a look so evil it would have made the devil himself cringe to look at it appeared in his eyes. Bella gulped, really starting to believe the truth bout her insanity, but it was too late to change anything about the thing she had just done now.

Voldemort turned back to Harry and pointed his wand at the boy, who gulped. However, the word that issued forth from the Dark Lord's mouth surprised everyone:

"_Stupefy."_

**A/N:** Yet another chapter rewritten. Wonderful news this, eh?

**Launigsiae: **Oh yeah! I did get one result! I won't e-mail you with the link though. It's much easier for me to simply post it here. Besides, other people want it too.

**Slimpun: **Thanks! I love it when people think my work is unique!

**Gaul1: **You bet it was build-up! (And not my current inability to write large amounts in one go)

**The Vampire Story Hunter: **Not true! I did get one, though it wasn't exactly a love story... and it wasn't here either, but on But I have put it in my summery that it's the first ever Harry/Bella romance.

**INMH: **No trouble! And here I update again! And without further ado, here are the old review responses.

**aLySsA: **I will keep going! If I don't this lot jabs thumb at other reviewers will probably hurt me.

**Sheener: **Thank you! Not exactly the romance I wanted to read, but thank you nonetheless!

**Aberforth Dumbledore: **This is slightly longer, eh? I'm planning on updating less frequently with longer chapters once my school starts up again, and then quicker with shorter updates if I've still got this going (and haven't finished it, which at the rate I'm going at I probably will have) when my school breaks up for summer.

**Darknessallover: **Okay, I've updated!

**GwEnDoLyN P. MaLfOy: **Yes! Another person I have swayed towards this pairing!

**Padfootjr23: **You bet she is!

**Numba 1: **Bella is not crazy! I'm gonna explain why soon enough.

**Sdf: **Thanks!

And finally, the link to the one Harry/Bella fic that there was before this: http: adultfan .nexcess. net / aff / story. Php ? no 2012598 Just copy and paste it and remove the spaces and add in the two/ after the http:


	6. Chapter 6

**A/N: ***squeaks* I've got loads of reviews for this! I'm kinda... in shock. And I've also figured out that the link I put up last time didn't work. story.php? no= 12598 is the link. Just take out the spaces and it should take you there.

**Disclaimer: **I do not own Harry Potter, or anything related to it that hasn't been mass-produced and sent off to shops all over the world for people to buy. That much is evident by the lack of Harry/Bella pairing in the actually canon.

**Chapter 6**

When Harry woke up he found himself alone in a dungeon. The place itself looked very similar to Azkaban, though Azkaban looked more pleasant. Maybe it was because Azkaban didn't have moisture dripping down the walls or mould growing on them. Or maybe it was because it was a lot darker in there than Azkaban. It didn't matter which.

Because of the dark, which was probably caused by a lack of lighting, and only one very small and very dirty window, Harry had no idea if it was night or day. Being unconscious always threw off his biological clock in a way nothing else could.

_'Great'_ he thought sarcastically. _'I'm stuck in the dungeon of the Dark Lord, who has, incidentally, been trying to kill me for the last 15 years or so. How could this possibly get any worse?! … Damn! I had to ask!'_

Growling to his self, knowing that he really shouldn't have jinxed himself. Now he knew what was worse. He was stuck in the dungeon of the Dark Lord who had been trying to kill him for 15 years unarmed and with the sound of footsteps approaching.

Up in one of the room the Dark Lord had spare, Bella sat down on a bed, wondering.

_'Why did I do that? Why? There's was no point! I should have just let Master kill Harry … Why the hell am I calling him Harry?! I'm a loyal Death eater! He's the Boy Who Lived! I should hate him! After all, it was his fault that I ended up in Azkaban both times…_

_'No, that's a lie. It wasn't his fault. First time round it my own foolishness that led me to be cause, second time I got to cocky where the aurors were involved._

_'But that still doesn't explain why I'm calling him Harry … Mmmmm, Harry, he's so... Shut up now brain! Shut up shut up shut up! Those sorts of thoughts lead to betraying the Master! I won't betray him!'_

_'But who would you rather betray? The person who you may be in love with, or the person you just serve for reasons that you forgot the true meaning of years ago?'_

Bella growled mentally. Why did that annoying voice have to show up at times like these?

_'You know why. I'm you subconscious.'_

_'Shut up! I don't care and I don't want to hear it!'_

_'You'll have to face it some time Trixie!'_

_'Don't call me Trixie! And face what?!'_

_'The truth of course!'_

"What truth?" she asked aloud, but it was too late. The voice was gone. Stupid subconscious. Why did it have to come and annoy her?

Down in the dungeons, Harry screamed from the effects of the cruciatus.

He coughed as the pain went, wondering how much more he could stand before he gave in.

_"Cruccio!" _hissed Voldemort again.

Writhing on the floor, Harry felt as if white-hot knifes were stabbing into him, his insides were turning to ash and his blood boiling, all when it felt like his skin was being turned to ice **(A/N: **mixing hot and cold really hurts!**)**. Finally Voldemort lifted the curse.

Harry lay on the floor, breathing heavily, unable to gather the energy to even sit up. Very so often he coughed and spluttered, but other than that he did nothing.

Voldemort smirked. He hadn't been torturing Harry for very long, but already it seemed as if the boy was close to giving in. How easy this was! It would only take a bit more pain, just a bit more and he would give in. 

Maybe he should lay off the physical pain though. Yes... other kinds would be far more effective.

"You do know you deserve this, don't you Harry?" Voldemort asked him gently, causing the boy to gasp. "It was your fault your parents died. If you hadn't been born I would never have had to go after you."

He let this claw at his conscious for a moment or to before he started again.

"That boy too, Cedric? Was that his name? He wouldn't be dead if you hadn't insisted that he take the cup with you, if you hadn't brought him to my rebirth."

Again, Voldemort paused.

"And your Godfather too. If only you had learnt to block your mind properly, he wouldn't be dead. Come to think of it, he wouldn't have gone to Azkaban either."

Harry lay on the floor, still unable to move, tears rolling down his cheeks. All of that hurt. Everyone may have told him it wasn't his fault, he even told himself it wasn't, but deep down he felt as if it was true.

"You can stop those deaths Harry. You have the power to," Voldemort continued, forcing his voice to sound honest, which was no easy task for him. "You only have to do one thing. All you need do is join me."

Harry lay on the floor still, no longer breathing so loudly.

_'Maybe I should join him... No! Don't even think it!'_

"It will stop these deaths, Harry. No one else would die because of you. So what do you say?"

Harry was silent, knowing that either way he was screwed. Join Voldemort, cause more deaths, don't join Voldemort, and he would probable end up watching countless people be tortured in front of him before being allowed to die.

"I can see this may take you a while. I will give you until tomorrow to decide," said Voldemort, quickly regaining his cold, hard demeanour and leaving the cell.

Shakily, Harry pulled himself to the wall and leaned against it. How the hell did he always end up in these situations?!

**A/N: **Okay, I think these chapters are getting longer, even though they are slowly getting less frequent. But from Monday onwards (up until the 31st of May, half term) the updates will be a lot less frequent (I have my year 9 SATs coming up in the first week of May, so, knowing my teachers, I'll end up with lots of homework and revision) but hopefully each chapter will be longer.

Oh, and to me this chapter seems a bit… amateurish. But I did start it at like 11 at night (when I'm usually in bed by on a non-school night if my parents have anything to do with it). I may re-write it later though.

**C: **Don't worry, I will.

**Launigsiae: **Me too! I am so totally pro-Slytherin! I'm just not sure if Harry should go dark I this. It's sort of cliché. Oh well, I've got till next chapter to work out if he will.

**padfootjr23: **Okay! You got it!

**diamond004: **Thank you! 

**jeangab057: **That's yet another person I've helped persuade towards the _best _ever HP pairing (with the exception of a few). Just kidding.

**Drusilla: **It wasn't _that _much of a cliffie!

**Roxoan: **Yah, that's the one sheener told me about, but ff.net wouldn't let me put up.

**Nemati: **Puh-lot? What is this puh-lot you speak of? Oh! You mean one of those things where the author actually knows how the story will pan out? I think I have one of them.

**potter-man1: **This soon enough?

**Gaul1: **Errr … I don't think I'd use sexual torture for this. But hopefully this chapter will answer your question.

**Nightwish_sama: **Yah, I'm glad about not being stuck too! That last chapter was stoopid! Evil and stooped!

**Jc****: **I will!


	7. Chapter 7

**A/N: **Okay, I've made my decision about Harry's decision. I hope it's the right one.

Oh, and yet again the link I put up didn't work! Dammit! adultfan .nexcess. net/ aff/ story. php? no=% 2012598 is the link, just remove the spaces. Hopefully it'll work this time. And if it doesn't go to adultfanfiction.net and search for vertex.

**Disclaimer: **Don't make me say it! Please don't make me say it! Okay, fine! I don't own Harry Potter or any characters relating to him. They belong to JK Rowling.

**Chapter 7**

Roughly 24 hours had passed in the dungeon Harry was in since the Dark Lord had left last time, and Harry knew he would be arriving again soon.

"So, Potter, have you decided if you want to stop all of the deaths yet?" asked Voldemort when he entered Harry's cell.

Harry stayed silent. He had indeed decided, but he didn't want to reveal his choice too soon.

"Well?!"

Harry could feel through his scar that the Dark Lord was getting impatient. That was probably a bad thing.

"Have you chosen?"

Again Harry stayed silent. Sometimes he just had to get on people's nerves.

_"Cruccio!"_

He screamed in pain. But then again, who wouldn't?

Vaguely he heard Voldemort asking him again if he had decided. Finally then curse was lifted.

"So tell me," said Voldemort sweetly, his voice sounding very similar to the same one

 he had used the day before. "Have you decided?"

"No."

"What?!"

"I... I won't join you Voldemort."

_"Cruccio!"_

Harry screamed again, writhing on the floor in pain, feeling as though his internal organs were being torn to shreds. He could feel in body convulsing in protest to such treatment.

_"Nobody refuses Lord Voldemort!" _Voldemort hissed in parseltongue, before turning and leaving the dungeon, his robes billowing behind him.

Harry lay back  against the wall again, shaking slightly from the after-effects of the curse. Maybe that hadn't been the best idea, refusing the Dark Lord's offer. But then again, it had gotten under his skin Harry thought with a slight smirk.

Bella walked down one of the passages in the dungeons of the Dark Lord's fortress nervously. She couldn't believe what she was about to do, and if she got caught she would probably be tortured and then killed for her treachery. 

Quickly, she checked to see if anyone was coming, and, when she saw none were, she opened the cell door.

Harry was sat with his back against the wall, with his head down, though he looked up when she entered the cell.

"Get up!" she said urgently. "You've got to get out of here!"

"What?" asked Harry, perplexed.

"You've got to get out of here!" she said again. "And quickly!"

Harry stood up, scowling at her.

"Why should I trust you?"

"Because I'm the one who kept the Dark Lord from killing you straight away at Azkaban. Now hurry up!"

He looked at her dubiously, but realising he had no other choice, he walked quickly out of the cell.

"Here, take this!" Bella hissed quickly, shoving a wand - his wand - into his hands.

"How did you-" Harry gasped out.

"The ministry hold all of the wands of the prisoners that they have in Azkaban in a room in the prison. The Dark Lord took yours as a sort of prize. Just go! Stupefy me and go! It'll make it look like you escaped!"

"Why," Harry started, not going yet. "Why are you helping me?"

"Just go! I don't know why I'm helping you, just go!" said Bella, panicking  slightly. If he didn't go soon they would be caught.

Harry nodded, excepting that for an answer.

"Stupefy," he muttered softly, before turning and running off, praying that he had chosen the correct way out of the fortress.

**A/N: **Okay, I'm not entirely happy with this chapter, but it'll do. After all, I did go back and re-write it, which I never do, and I added a scene, so I suppose this is about as good as I'll get it. I'll probably get over it anyway.

Okay, a couple more things before I go onto to the review responses. First off... THERE'S 58 REVEIWS NOW! And for 6 chapters that works out at somewhere between 9 and 10 reviews per chapter on average. And to me that's a big deal.

And the other thing? Well, Harry went light, as you can see, but once I finish this fic and a couple of others so I don't have such a work load, I'll probably write an AU on this, where Harry did go dark. But that may take a while, as I have 2 other fics on the go, and one on hold. I may finish 1 of them today. Hopefully I will, but the others will take a while.

And now it's time for the part you've all been waiting for (okay, so that was the fic! You've probably not even bothered to read this part), the review responses!

**Launigsiae: **Yah, okay. I will continue anywayz.

**Mike: **Okay!

**Lanfear1: **That's the problem with fanfiction today! Not enough Harry/bella! Heehee!

**diamond004: **I know I'm mean to Harry! But if you only knew what my mind can think up for characters that I _hate _(i.e.: Ron) then you'd see I was actually being kind to him. Ron and Hermione are at Order HQ at the minute, and you'll see the rest of the wizarding world's reaction to Harry getting out of Azkaban soon enough.

**Numba1: **Yay! The pairings like me! Different!

**Gaul1: **You'll see soon enough.

The anonymous reviewer who didn't leave a name**:** This quick enough?

**The Vampire Story Hunter: **You do realise you totally stopped me from stressing about this, right? There will be a story following this, thanks to you, where he does go dark, like I've said before.

**Vegita43: **Yah, I'm attached to this pairing too. Only NEARLY NO OTHER AUTHOR HAS WRITTEN ONE! Sorry, I'm a little bit touchy about that.

**LiL AcE ViLLa: **Thank you! I'll try and get more of those moments in later on.

**Nightwish_sama****: **It was! I hate it! Just like I hate (sort of) this chapter! And nothing you can say will persuade me otherwise!

Okay, that's everyone that shows up on the review page for the story so far. Thanks everyone!


	8. Chapter 8

**A/N: **Yah, yah, yah! Me again! Heehee! I know what's gonna happen this chapter!

**Disclaimer: **Must I go through this every time? I do not own Harry Potter, or any of the characters or locations relating to Harry Potter. Happy now?

**Chapter 8**

"Ron!" said Hermione sharply. "I can't believe you!"

"But Hermione!"

"How can you be more concerned about your own stomach when anything could be happening to Harry!"

"Hermione!"

"Don't Hermione me Ron! I can't believe you doubt his innocence! You're _supposed _to be his best friend!"

"Will you look at the facts Hermione!"

"I am Ron! And I can see there was no evidence to convict him!"

Ron was silent for a moment. The two of them had had the same argument many times over the last weeks or so. Before they had both been on the same side, when Harry had been first convicted, but after his escape he hadn't been so sure, whilst Hermione still firmly believed in his innocence.

"If he was innocent, and I'm not saying he was, then why did he leave Azkaban with You-Know-Who during that attack? Why couldn't the ministry find his wand afterwards?"

Hermione chewed her lip. She could see she wasn't going to get through to him, no matter what she said. Sure all, all of the evidence pointed to the fact that Harry was guilty, but it had been the same with Sirius... Sirius... In her mind that meant that Harry would never switch over, never. Especially with everything else that Voldemort had done to make his life hell.

It had been a shock to them all when Harry had been sent to Azkaban, but none of them had believe that he was truly. Most just believed it was a mistake, a miscarriage of justice. After all, it had happened plenty of times in the past.

But after his had gotten out of Azkaban, whether he had been abducted or had gone willingly, a lot of people had reconsidered, and ended up thinking that he was guilty. She was one of the few that didn't.

"Ron, did it ever occur to you that he might have been kidnapped from Azkaban?"

That shut Ron up. For about ten seconds.

"What about his wand then? No one could find it afterwards."

"I don't know Ron, okay? I just don't know! But I refuse to stop believing in him!"

"But-"

"Ron!" she said. This conversation always got her mad. "I can't believe - I won't believe Harry would go dark!"

"But-"

"Shut up Ron!" she yelled at him, before storming off. Why couldn't he see that Harry would never do such a thing? Why? It wasn't theasible.

In Voldemort's fortress a certain Dark Lord was mad. No, actually, mad would be an understatement. As would furious, fuming and just about any other words of a similar meaning. In truth, our favourite Dark lord was very, very pissed off.

The reason why he was pissed of was, as usual, because of Potter. Or maybe it was the fact that he had escaped without any struggle at all, with the possible exception of Bellatrix, though he wasn't even sure if she had tried to stop him.

_"Delacero!" _he hissed, pointing his wand at her, causing her skin to tear. 

"Now tell me, Bella," he said once her screaming had subsided. "How did Potter manage to stun you without a wand?"

"M-My Lord!" she gasped out. "Please! I beg of you!"

"How did he do it Bella?"

Bella remained silent.

"Bella," he hissed again, dangerously. "How did he do it?"

Again, she didn't answer.

_'Stupid bitch,'_ he thought angrily. Why did she have to force him to do this?

_"Legillimens," _he said, invading her memories.

_'Bella walked down one of the passages in the dungeons of the Dark Lord's fortress nervously. She couldn't believe what she was about to do, and if she got caught she would probably be tortured and then killed for her treachery.'_

"So you betray me Bella..."

"M-My Lord-" she started to explain, but was cut off by her own screams as the cruciatus was cast upon her.

"You betrayed me Bella," the dark Lord said over her screams. "I really expected better from you, as one of my most loyal."

"My Lord! Please!"

"You really should have known better - once you join me there is no going back!"

"But My Lord, I-"

_"Cruccio!" _

Bella screamed again.

"You should have known I except no excuses Bellatrix. You shouldn't have betrayed me. This is only the beginning of the pain I will put you through. _You should never have betrayed me!"_

Lifting the latest spell, he left her on the ground sobbing. It served her right for her betrayal.

**A/N: **AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH! This chapter is sooo short! AHHHHHHHHHH!  It evil chapter! Short and torturous! Evil!

**Launigsiae: **Yah, I'll do that AU! It will be fun once I write it!

**Gaul1: **Um... chase...? It's not there yet. Just punishments. Heehee!

**Taz: **Okay!

**Nemati: **This is what happens next! And the AU won't be up for a while. I've got to write it first.

**Nightwish_sama: **I only think they're rubbish if they are! Besides, I don't think this one is rubbish! Just short! So nyeah nyeah!

**Dracosgirlie: **Awww! Glad I could be of service! Weirdness is my speciality!

**Barymic: **That is one long review. I think there's only about one other Harry/Bella out there though. Or at least one that I can find. Mind you, I am only checking in English. The guilt trip was perfect for Voldemort though. After all, he uses he connection he has with Harry to his advantage, to know what his weaknesses are, so it stands to reason that he should use it to din out what Harry feels guilty about. I will be putting the prophecy in this. I'm just not sure how it will fit when I do the AU. I'll figure that out when I write it. And Fudge will be dead. I never liked him either.

**jeangab057: **I'll write that AU in a while, okay?


	9. Chapter 9

**A/N: **Yeah, me again. But I think I'm back to loving my chapters now! I've not long written one for one of my other stories, and I loved it. Hopefully this will be the same!

**Disclaimer: **I do not own Harry Potter or any of the characters relating to Harry Potter. I don't even own the computer I'm typing this up on. That belongs to my mum.

**Chapter 9**

"I can't believe Bella betrayed the Dark Lord!"

"I know! She helped Potter escape! She was supposed to be the most loyal!"

"She's being tortured right now, isn't she?"

"Yeah, probably."

Harry gulped. He had been eavesdropping from a hidden position on a conversation between a couple of Death Eaters. He had stuck around Voldemort's fortress to be sure that Bella would be okay, and that Voldemort wouldn't suspect anything. Lucky for her that he had.

He knew he owed her a wizard's debt, just as Wormtail owed him one. He just wasn't too sure of the details of it.

Almost ready to attempt getting her back, he looked around, checking to see if there were any Death Eaters about, and set off quickly. Hopefully he could get her out of their quickly. Otherwise… well, he didn't want to think of the consequences. They were too severe.

But if he was caught, the consequences for him would be just as severe, and it would mean that Bella's betrayal of Voldemort would have been in vain. He had to think this through.

Racking his brains, he tried to remember if they had covered any spells, charms or anything that could help him out. So far all he could come up with was the Polyjuice potion, and that wouldn't be of any use. Not only would it take to long to make, but he didn't know how to make it without instructions and he would have to take a dose every hour so he wouldn't revert back to looking like himself, not to mention the fact that he would need a bit of whoever he wanted to turn into. Plus he didn't have any of the ingredients.

Sighing, he lay down, making sure he was well hidden. There had to be a way for him to conceal his identity, through a spell, or something. There had to be.

Searching through all of the knowledge he had gained through 5 years at Hogwarts, he really started to hate how inattentive he was sometimes during class. What if a teacher had said something once that he could use there and then?

Shifting slightly, to see if he could get into a little bit more of a comfortable position, he quickly moved back to his original one, pulling up a plants that had caused a sharp pain in his back when he had rolled over.

_'Bloody thistles...' _he thought, before it hit him. Thistles had very little to offer the world in general. They didn't look nice, apart from when they were in flower, and even then it was particularly eye-catching, and they were generally considered weeds. 

But what was that Professor Snape had said on one of the rare occasions he had actually been listening during potions? Ah yes, he could remember now.

_'Every plant, no matter how useless it may seem, has a purpose of some kind. Deadly Nightshade, for example, though many regard it as pointless, they do not realise it is used in potions. Even common thistles and nettles can be used. In- Longbottom! Are you incapable of even so much as listening for even a minute amount of time?! 15 points from Gryffindor!'_

How could he have forgotten? Besides the obvious reason that they had lost the average amount of points that lesson for Gryffindor from Snape, so it wasn't really that memorable.

But then, of course, Hermione had dragged him and Ron to the library to look up some things about common plants and their uses. He was sure he would never understand her. It wasn't even homework, so they didn't have to do it.

There was only one problem. He knew there was one plant that could be used for glamour, when it was coupled with a spell. He knew it was a vital ingredient for the Polyjuice as well, but what was it...?

Quickly running through what he could remember from when he, Ron and Hermione had brewed it; he tried to think of the ingredients. There were fluxweed… knotgrass… along with a few others like dittany, they were pretty much the only plant ingredients used. The rest came from animals and such, like powered horn of bicorn.

But what was it that gave the Polyjuice it's masking effect? It was driving him insane. He knew that fluxweed and knotgrass helped a bit with the potency, but nothing more. The shrivelfig that was just stopped it from becoming a weak poison. The dittany… That was the one ingredient he couldn't remember the use of, though he knew it only grew in Crete, so even if it could have helped him, it wouldn't have been of much use.

There was one more plant used... but what was it? Fluxweed, knotgrass, shrivelfig and… daisy petals! That was it! Daisy roots and petals were never used in the same potions because the difference in properties made for volatile results. The roots had shrinking abilities, whilst the petals, if mixed with certain ingredients would enlarge things, and on their own they could be used to mask people or items.

Looking around, Harry tried to spot some daisies. It shouldn't be too hard, after all, there were lots of plant life around, plenty of trees ad flowers, which gave quite a contrast to what went on inside Voldemort's fortress. It could be considered ironic, even. A fortress where death is a common occurrence, surrounded by life. But, then again, isn't life always like that?

Inside the fortress, deep in the dungeons, inside one of the darkest cells, Bellatrix Lestrange was contemplating her life.

At a young age her family had taught her, along with her two sisters, Narcissa and Andromeda, and her two cousins, Sirius and Regulus, that serving the Dark lord was the only option, other than, for her and her sisters at least, marrying a top Death Eater. Sirius and Andromeda had managed to break away from the family's ideals before the rest, getting themselves blown off of the family tree and disowned. 

Narcissa, on the other hand, had married a Malfoy, who was a top Death Eater and came from a long line of pure-bloods, so that was her sorted out. She didn't have to actively take part in and Death Eating, so she was happy.

Regulus, she supposed, had been most like her. He was the youngest, which was another thing they had in common, though they had never gotten along as children. He too had chosen to become a Death Eater, like her, and he had betrayed the Dark lord, like her. There seemed to be only one main difference between them. He wasn't alive, and she was. For the moment.

It seemed that no Black could openly serve the Dark Lord without betrayal, or at least that was how it seemed in her mind.

Sitting back, she smiled, and her smile turned into a chuckle, her chuckle into a giggle, and pretty soon she was in hysterics. She couldn't believe it. She was in the worst situation of her life; bleeding, bruised, wounded, possibly - no, probably - mentally unstable, in the Dark lord's dungeons having betrayed him, and she couldn't stop laughing.

She couldn't help it though. Something about the irony of the Dark Lord's most loyal betraying him without too much of a second thought and would, most probably, end up being killed for it.

She had gone to Azkaban to pay for her loyalty and the fact she was proud to have that repulsive mark on her arm which she now loathed with all of her being. And it was all because of her dead cousin's Godson.

Oh, she was glad she had helped him escape, sure enough. In fact, it had been one of the best and maybe only good decision she had made in her life. It was the fact that she was glad, in such a situation that had her laughing.

Why didn't she run, some of you might ask. There was one very good reason for that. She couldn't

Even if she could gather up the courage and energy to, there would be no way she could get out alone.

She still had her wand, or rather it was still in the cell, but it was attached to a rope, which, in turn, was attached to the ceiling, out of her reach, just like her freedom. Besides, her wand wouldn't be much used even if she could get to it. The door itself was charmed, like all of the others in the dungeons, so it could only be unlocked from the outside.

Hearing the locks click, Bella braced herself for another onslaught of torture for such betrayal by V…V…Voldemort. She had to get used to calling him that. He wasn't her lord anymore, calling him 'The Dark lord' didn't seem right, and all of the 'You Know Who' and 'He Who Must Not Be Named' business, quite frankly, got on her nerves.

She was surprised, however, that instead of Voldemort, a lower Death Eater, whose face she could not place, entered the cell.

Coughing up a bit of blood, she managed to speak.

"Wh-who are you?" she asked, playing that the answer wouldn't be the person who would take her to be killed.

"I'm… a friend," said the figure secretively.

"Who?!" she demanded. It probably wasn't the best idea, but she was rarely patient.

The figure smiled, as if he found this amusing. It probably was to him. Bloody Death Eaters.

"You've forgotten about the person who you've not long spent around… How long was it? Three weeks? With in Azkaban. I'm hurt," he said, finishing up sarcastically.

Confusion briefly crossed her features, before recognition set in, and she rushed up and embraced him into a hug.

"Thank you," she whispered into him ear.

"No problem," Harry said, smiling.

**A/N: **OMGOMGOMGOMG! This chapter is _sooooo_ long for me! It's like 1,700 words long! OMG! It has me in total shock! And for once I actually like a chapter of this fic! I can't believe this! Yes! Byproduct of Evil is back! Woohoo! As you can tell, I'm happy. Which I am. Very much so. I love this chapter! Woohoo!

Now, as you can probably tell, I improvised with a lot of stuff in this chapter. But I only did it because there isn't anywhere near enough information available to me. But whatever.

Oh, and those of you that want the AU to this, you're going to have to wait until my school closes for summer, which isn't until the 9th of July. But I will write it!

Now, onto my favourite part, the review responses!

**Nightwish_sama: **You are immature! You are you are you are! You are! I'm constantly telling you this! And don't call me a spoon!

**Launigsiae: **I know. He has _almost _saved her!

**G: **If you insist.

**Smackskiller: **This is weirder that Harry/Hedwig? You sure? Coz in this at least the two people paired are from the same species!

**Aberforth Dumbledore: **This is longer. It took longer, but it is longer. The AU should be up, like I've said, in a while, when I'm on my summer break.

**LiL AcE ViLLa: **Yeah, I never thought I'd be agreeing with someone who said poor Bella, but I am! Harry has saved the day... again! I've continued now too.

The reviewer that didn't leave a name**:  **I have!

**The Vampire Story Hunter: **I will. I'll be writing it before summer, so I'll be a few chapters ahead with it when I finally put it up, but it won't be up till summer.

**Lanfear1: **It varies from person to person on if they believe him.

And one last thing before I go and post this.  I have just created a Yahoo! Group for this pairing. Please come join me there. I'm even posting the guidelines to the challenge I said I would post a while back but never got around to it. The URL is:

h t t p : / / g r o u p s . y a h o o . c o m / g r o u p / HarryBella

Just take out the spaces and you'll get there.


	10. Chapter 10

**A/N: **Yes, yet another chapter. I hope you like it.

**Disclaimer: **I do not have ownership of Harry Potter or anything of the characters or places associated with Harry Potter. If I did it would be very scary indeed.

**Chapter 10**

Rain poured down and thunder crashed in the sky above as forked lightning flashed across it and Harry and Bella hid beneath a bush, sheltering from the storm.

"How long do you think this storm'll last?" asked Bella. She hoped it wouldn't last long. If it did they would probably end up being caught by the ministry, or, worse, Death Eaters.

"I don't know," Harry sighed. "But we should probably get going soon though. It might give us a better chance of getting away."

Bella nodded. If they were to set out whilst it was still raining, hopefully the rain would wash away any footprints. It would mean that the rain would slow them down slightly, but that couldn't be helped.

Over about the next half an hour or so the rain showed no sign of ceasing. In fact, it was just the opposite: it increased, causing the already water-logged ground to be covered with muddy puddles of water

"We should go now," Harry said eventually. "The rain probably won't stop for awhile. The sooner we go the better."

Again Bella nodded. She hated rain, and walking just as much, so naturally walking in the rain was probably one of her worst nightmares… if you didn't count losing a certain someone.

Hermione stared out of a window at Grimmauld Place. It wasn't raining, which was basically the first time that week that it hadn't done so, but judging by the sky it would start up again soon.

It was a grey, miserable day, which came as a shock for summer. For some reason there had been nothing but rain and terrible weather in general for a few days, starting only a couple of days since the latest Azkaban breakout, but no one could figure out why. She had even heard that the ministry couldn't figure it out, and they, after all, were the ones who basically decided the weather.

Looking up at the sky, she realised it was a perfect mirror for how she was feeling. Grey and miserable. The thunder and lightning that had been going on previously partially symbolised the person she was currently thinking about.

Harry. She had known him for years, and because of that she felt sure she knew that he would never go dark, or join Voldemort. That would be the one thing he would never do, especially willingly. Why would he? Voldemort had taken away everything from him. His parents, Sirius, several friends (though she wasn't all to certain that Harry quite counted Cedric as a friend at the time), the majority of people Harry cared about, in fact. So it made no sense for him to join that monster.

Given the choice between joining the Dark Lord and living, she knew that Harry would not choose Voldemort. Given the choice between the Dark lord and his death she knew his answer would be death every time. To tell the truth, she knew there was only one way that Harry would ever join up with the man that had made his life living hell: if his friends' lives were threatened. And she knew Voldemort would most definitely sink to that level.

But something still told her he hadn't joined Voldemort. It could have been denial, but somehow she didn't think so. After all, she _had _always realised that there could be a slight possibility that he could, but it had always been so small that it had always been almost non-existent.

Looking over, Ron saw that Hermione was staring out of the window again with a look of sorrow on her face. The two of them had had yet another fight, and once again it had been about Harry.

He knew that she had some good point, but he did too. There was definitely a large possibility that Harry could join You-Know-Who, especially after discovering that Dumbledore deliberately kept several important issues about Harry's life secret until the end of the previous school year, but he hadn't truly believed in such a possibility until Harry had left Azkaban.

He and Hermione though, nowadays they seemed to be constantly at one another's throats, whereas before it wasn't really too often. Harry had always managed to keep the peace between the two of them, by simply being more interested in Quidditch than Hermione and more interested in whatever Hermione was interested in than him. Without him, the two of them seemed to fight constantly.

It was a puzzle really, on how much a single person could keep so much peace. And it wasn't just on a small scale either. He had heard from his dad about things from all over the wizarding world.

There had been mass-riots erupting all over the place, mainly between those that believed in Harry's innocence and those that did not. Many people had lost the person they most believed in, and seemed to be lashing out at those that still thought that such a person was still on their side. Indeed, many would have been shocked at the lack of co-operation between the people of every country.

_'United we stand, divided we fall…' _For some reason those words came back to him, though he couldn't really remember where he had heard them. It was probably from one of Dumbledore's speeches at the end of one of their years at Hogwarts, probably one of the last two in fact.

But those words did seem to take on special meaning right then. Harry had basically united the wizarding world to an extent, so before Harry's arrest they would have stood a much greater chance at stopping You-Know-Who, but afterwards the world had pretty much fallen into chaos. And it was all down to Voldemort, with perhaps a little help from Fudge.

Ugh! The word 'fudge' was supposed to bring thoughts of that sweet, the muggle one, but nowadays it tended to bring up thoughts of incompetent ministers that had sent his ex-best friend to prison, though it was possibly one of the few right things he had ever done.

But for some reason, as much as he felt the evidence had pointed to Harry being guilty, he couldn't believe it. His head told him he should but… something was holding him back from believing.

Before anyone of them could say another word though, a loud sound penetrated the silent air, setting Mrs Black off ranting again. Someone was knocking on the door. 

**A/N: **Okay, so evil cliffie, but hopefully I should update again soon. This chapter was just kinda hard to write for me. That's why it took a couple of days longer than I would have hoped (I could have got it up at the week-end otherwise) but I should be able to get the next one up soon. Hopefully.

**Smackskiller: **Oh! I didn't realise you said it was by Master Eldryn! If I had of I would have realised there was a very small chance it would be weird (you've found yet another fan of him, as you can tell). But Harry and Bella aren't cursing one another anymore!

**padfootjr23: **Okay!

**The Vampire Story Hunter: **Okay, more detail, check. Will do in the future. But Harry not forgiving his friends? I'm not so sure I'll do that. Forgiving Ron is totally out of the question, but as for Hermione… I'm not so sure.

**Launigsiae: **I loved that ending too! It as the first time there seemed to be any actual romance!

**Hikuro Hoshi: **Yah, it is a weird pairing, but there probably are weirder ones possible, just no one's ever really thought of them. Here's the next chapter, even though I didn't manage to get it out at the week-end.

**X: **Errr... ok!

**Sword of Darkness: **I know! I'm currently trying to persuade people of the greatest that is Harry/Bella!

**diamond004: **The daisy petals? Well, the only other thing was that once they were ingested (not advisable in real life though) you had to say the incantation for a spell, 'glamouris' in this case, in this case, and then add a name on the end. Harry had added on the name of a Death Eater that wasn't in the Inner Circle, but he had over-heard the name of in his eavesdropping session. I hope that answers your question.

**jeangab057: **Bella fate will be revealed next chapter (my way of saying I have no idea!).

**vghgygytfrgkufkyttrgfmghd****: **Well, I suppose it's better than no name at all. Is this update soon enough?

**Vegita43: ***blushes* Me? A genius? You seem to have me mixed up with someone else. Besides, it wasn't even totally my idea for this pairing! That was mainly Nightwish_sama's idea!


	11. Chapter 11

**A/N: **Okay, I'm in a bad mood. The reason, put simply, is PMS, so if any reviewer wants to send in a flame of any sort, then now would be the time to do it, cause I really need something to vent my anger on.

**Disclaimer: **As much as I would love to own Harry Potter, I do not. I own nothing to do with him, or anyone else.

**Chapter 11**

There was another loud knock on the door, this time seeming more urgent, causing both Ron and Hermione to look at one another.

Thunder clashed outside, the storm starting up again outside, making Hermione snap her head back to the window. It didn't seem normal for there to be so much rain in the middle of summer. But, in truth, it wasn't.

There was more knocking at the door, this time not stopping, making such a noise that even Mrs Black stopped shouting in curiosity. Finally, Mrs Weasley went to answer it, just as it stopped.

Outside, Harry was leaning on Bella for support. They had been found by the Death Eaters during their journey, a couple of weeks earlier. The two of them had managed to get away, Harry had been injured. It hadn't been a bad injury at the time, but, as time went on, without medical attention it had gradually worsened, until it looked like a large hole I his side, and now it was all Harry could do to stand up, even with help. She, too, had been injured, but nowhere near to the extent Harry had been.

"Are you sure we're in the right place?" asked Bella uncertainly. Sure, she had known that her Aunt and Uncle's house had been here, but they had been standing there, knocking on what seemed to her to be nothing more than a plain brick wall for ages, with no one answering.

"Yes, I'm positive."

"Then why can you see it but I can't?"

"It's the fedelius charm."

"Oh…" she said. How could she have forgotten how obsessive her uncle had been over security? "I hope you're right, whatever'll happen. You need to be healed soon because that cut gets any worse."

Looking at him, she saw him grimace, and heard him cough slightly.

"Are you feeling worse?" she asked concerned. Harry nodded slightly.

"Yeah, a bit…" he started to say before he passed out.

Bella felt her eyes widen, and she dropped to her knees in shock. Surely his injuries hadn't gotten that bad so quickly!

"Harry? Harry?! Wake up! Please wake up!"

It had occurred to her that she could have used her wand, but she knew that waking someone who had passed out naturally with magic could, and usually did, hurt them. It was just one of the things that magic couldn't help with.

Thinking quickly, she went up to the wall and started banging on it loudly. She didn't have time to worry about what would happen if Harry had been wrong. She didn't have time to worry about what would happen if Harry was right. All she had times to worry about was making sure that Harry was okay.

After a couple of minutes of trying to attract attention, she felt her energy leaving her. Try as she might, she couldn't carry on banging. Laying her head down she let unconsciousness claim her.

**(A/N: **I was just going to leave it here, but I know I wouldn't be able too, so be grateful!**)**

Waking up for the first time in a comfortable bed in several weeks, Harry instinctively reached for his glasses, a habit which he had developed over many years, before realising that something was wrong.

The last thing he could remember was waiting with Bella, after knocking on the door a couple of times, and Bella being confused at the fact that they seemed to be waiting at a brick wall. Then darkness had clouded his vision...

"So you've finally woken up?" asked a voice from beside him, causing him to jump.

Turning swiftly, Harry saw that the voice belonged to Tonks, who was instantly recognisable from the fact she had yellow and orange polka dotted hair, a style no one else would ever adopt in their right mind.

"Don't worry," she laughed slightly when she saw him stiffen slightly at the sight of her. "We know you're innocent- most of us never doubted it for a moment. We found out from Auntie Bellatrix. She woke up a couple of days ago."

"Days?" Harry asked, overcoming his initial shock and focusing on what, to him at least, seemed to be the main point of what she said, before re-analysing what Tonks had said. _"Auntie Bellatix?"_

"Yes," she said, before giggling. "And yes. We tested her with Veritaserum the moment she woke up so we could find out what happened. Poppy wasn't pleased though, I must say," she finished him wincing, as though the memory was painful.

"And I'm still not," said a voice from behind them, which Harry recognised only too well. Madame Promfrey. "Now get out! I don't care if it is still the summer holidays, Mr Potter is patient, and he needs medical attention! Now out!"

Allowing herself to be shooed out, Tonks left without a word. After several minutes of checking Harry over, Madame Promfrey left too, obviously not finding anything wrong with him, whilst muttering under her breath about 'teenagers being too healthy' and 'putting honest nurses like me out of a job'.

**A/N: **Okay, I just need to say this. From Tuesday through to next Friday don't expect any updates at all. The reason is my year Nine SATs are next week, and considering how tired I am if I have a test on any day, and just the one too, mind, I'm gonna be too exhausted to write.

I was putting off writing this all day, simply because I didn't wanna write, but now that I have I'm glad. I got this chapter out of the way, and I may well get another chapter out before Tuesday. Hopefully I will to make up for the rest of the week. Other than that I should be fine.

**Vegita43: **Errmm... Okay... And I know of a couple of others that have. If you want links to their stories then go to the Yahoo!Group that I put a link up to last chapter, or, failing that, there's a link in my bio to it.

**Launigsiae: **Did this take long?

**Spaimla: **Thank you and okay!

**Sword of Darkness: **Hey! Evil cliffies are what I do best!

**jeangab057: **The confrontation's next chapter. I think Harry may have opened his eyes a bit to some things that he wasn't bothered about before.

**The Vampire Story Hunter: **Okay! I'll gladly make Harry hate the Weasley's and _Dumb_ledore. That's always fun. But I can't make him hate Hermy! I just can't! It's just one of the few things I can't do, no matter what!

**Lanfear1: **Yeps, they do! Thank you!

**gaul1: **No wonder about it.

**bgfnfdtrsjgthtjghdkytkyt7uytkyfkyj: **Okay... but, as I've not long said, no updates from Tuesday to Friday.

**padfootjr23: **Thanks!


	12. Chapter 12

**A/N: **OMG!  I have over 100 reviews for this! 111 to be exact at this point! This is only the second fic I've _ever_ gotten more than 100 reviews for! In fact, come to think of it, this is only the second fic I've gotten more than 50 reviews for (okay, so there's also one where I got exactly 50, but that doesn't count). This may be the cause of a permanent sugar high!

**Disclaimer: **I do not own Harry Potter, or any related characters or places. This is a Harry Potter fanfiction, so any mention of them is completely deliberate, but does not give me any ownership of them.

**Chapter 12**

Lying down on a bed, looking up at the ceiling, Bella started to think about things, and for one of the first times recently she wasn't just thinking about Harry.

The Black family's ancestral home had changed quite a bit since the last time she had visited, some fifteen or sixteen years ago. It looked nowhere near as dark or as foreboding as it had back then, but it looked dilapidated still from years of neglect. Even if the Order of the Phoenix had managed to make it inhabitable for human beings, there were still some tell-tale signs that it had lain abandoned for 10 years or so, in the period between her Aunt's death and her cousin bringing the Order to stay.

Several of the ceiling tiles were cracked, and looked as though they had been for some time. Obviously Kreacher had not been doing his job as a House Elf properly.

Most things were covered in several layers of dust; even the ridges in the wallpaper had not escaped it, just as it had not escaped fading from the sun, until it looked like a dirty grey instead of the dark brown she remembered it as. 

The carpets, too, were in a similar state. The sun had gotten to them just as much, and instead of what had been a deep, blood red there was the same grey, with perhaps a slight pinkish tinge to it. That was all that really made it possible to distinguish between the floors and the walls.

Several of the portraits on the walls, most of which depicted the members of the family that were considered worthy enough to be on the walls, the rest showing other famous dark witches and wizards, were covered in dust, several of the frames, and even a canvas or two that they were painted on were starting to rot slightly, and were, if possible, more disgruntled than when she had been a child visiting her Uncle Nerezzo and her Aunt Lyra.

There were, of course, other differences too, besides the dust and such. There was the fact many of the family heirlooms had gone - courtesy of Sirius, probably. Everything from the Black family coat of arms engraved silverware to the ancient textbooks on a magic so dark the very few, even in a family as dark as theirs, had ever read. According to a couple of stories she had heard when she had been a child; they were cursed so that whoever read them would be forced to try one of the spells that they had read about in the book, and so having the pure black magick that was needed for the spell consume their very soul. But that had, most likely, been a tale told so that they wouldn't have touched, and most probably broken, some very valuable books when they had been younger.

And then there was the portrait of her Aunt Lyra. The old bat had been alive when she had last visited, so the portrait hadn't been on the way, but now it was stuck on there with a permanent sticking charm and was hostile to whomever it spoke to. Except for, for some reason.

She knew why, of course. It was because, in her Aunt's eyes at least, she had not betrayed the family. She had joined Voldemort, and, according to the twisted sense of logic all Blacks seemed to possess, even though it varied slightly from Black to Black, had proven herself worthy of not being shouted and yelled at, or to be called a blood traitor.

Her family had always been a bit of a mystery to her. A lot of them had been deeply immersed in the Dark Arts, which could only really be expected from a family with the last name of Black. The ones that weren't, and she knew there were many of them, had been wiped off of the family tree in a moment of madness by one of the members of the family who was in possession of the tapestry at the time. That had been the thing she had never understood.

The Black family, whilst never appearing outwardly caring or loving, had all cared a lot for the people in the family. Or, at least, they did up until the point when they can be considered blood traitors. After that point the entire family treated them as inferiors, as if they weren't related by blood.

She had been brought up believing this, and, not wanting to be wiped off of the tapestry, she had complied with her family's wishes.

Thinking back, it was one of the stupidest things she had ever done, besides joining Voldemort, to go along with something she hadn't believed in, as it had, pretty much, turned her heart cold. Fortunately she was over that now, thanks to a certain raven haired, emerald eyed boy.

That same boy whom Bella was thinking about was currently annoying the hell out of one Poppy Promfrey.

"Will you get back in bed?! You've not recovered enough to be up and about!" she snapped at him, yet again, repeating an argument she'd had with him many times before, as she had had with his father too.

"But I'm fine!" Harry insisted. "I've never felt better! I swear it!"

"Maybe you do feel that way," replied Madame Promfrey, scowling. "But the last person I trusted when they said that ended up back under my care as a nurse within moments of leaving!"

"I'm not that person though!" he pursued. "Look, if I feel up to arguing about my health and whether or not I can get up then I'm fine!"

Growling, she relented. This was one of the few times one of her patients, let alone a sixteen year old boy, had won a fight with her about whether said patient was well enough to get up.

"Okay then, go, but if you collapse don't come running to me!"

Resisting the urge to tell her that he wouldn't be able to go running to her if he did collapse, and even if he could have gone running to her, he most probably wouldn't, knowing how long he would end up under her care for (which was basically in infinite about of time as far as he could tell), knowing that she would probably end up changing her mind about letting him go, and simply left.

The big grin that had been on his face only moments before vanished as he leant against a wall and head footsteps approaching, knowing that they would probably belong to either one of the Weasleys, Hermione or Dumbledore, possibly more than one of the above, none of whom he wanted to face.

"Harry, I-"

"Save it Ron," he said calmly, instantly recognising the voice. "I don't want to hear it."

"But Harry! I just want to explain!"

"I said I don't want to hear it!" Harry almost yelled, feeling his anger rising. "I know you didn't think I was guilty whilst I was stuck in Azkaban, which may be considered one of the worst places on Earth, but I know better! You did, however, doubt me, and even went so far as to fight with Hermione, because she happened to believe in me the whole time, whilst I was stuck in one of the places that actually_ is _worse than Azkaban: in Voldemort's dungeons!"

"Harry, please, just listen to me! I'm sorry!" the redhead said, seeming to beg him.

"You're sorry? You're sorry?! OF SOURSE YOU'RE BLOODY SORRY! EVERYONE IS FUCKING SORRY AFTER THE EVENT IF THEY MADE A MISTAKE, BUT SOMETIMES SORRY ISN'T GOOD ENOUGH RON! Sometimes it isn't good enough..."

Just one look at Harry's face told Ron everything that he needed to know. Harry probably was never going to forgive him, so he did the one thing he could do. He fled from the possible impending wrath of the Boy Who Lived.

Sighing, Harry watched Ron's retreating back, regretting his outburst, though, at the same time, he was pleased with it. He knew that if it hadn't of happened it would have just built up inside of him, until, eventually, it would have just burst out, ten times worse than it would have been otherwise. And he knew he probably never would be able to forgive him. After all, Ron should have known there was no possibility that he would have joined Voldemort. None at all.

The sky outside of the window was a cloudless blue, changing back to such a colour most associated with summer from the dark grey it had been. It looked like the ministry had managed to figure out what had happened and had corrected it. It had taken them long enough.

Staring up at such a sky was Hermione granger. For some reason she seemed to have developed what could be described as an unhealthy obsession with the weather. She couldn't understand it. All she knew was that for some reason it was calming staring out of the window staring at it, thinking about it, amongst other things.

And one of those other things was Harry. She knew they had found him, of course she did. Practically the entire order knew, along with the fact that Bellatrix Lestrange, it seemed, had switched sides in the war against Voldemort. She also knew he had woken up, though she hadn't been allowed to see him yet, as much as she wanted to.

She needed to talk to him. He probably knew about her and Ron's fights over his innocence, probably from either Tonks, Remus or one of the others. She just wanted him to know the full story.

And that was why, when she heard Harry's voice yelling, she immediately assumed that Ron had been trying to explain and apologised, and had obviously managed to get him mad. That probably meant that there would be no way she could explain things to him properly for a while, until he calmed down a bit at least. And, hopefully, by then he wouldn't have developed a hate for her like he seemed to have for several people who were in the building at the moment, and several others who weren't.

**A/N: **Holy mother of pizza! The actually story part of this update just fell short of 1,800 words! This about the second one of such length! Normally I struggle to make 1,000! I suppose I'm kind of making up for the fact that I only managed to write really short chapters (a couple not even managing to get past 400 words) at the beginning. So it kind of evens out.

Okay, I may get another update done tomorrow, but if I don't you lot will have to wait until next Saturday for one. It'll kinda be a celebration of the fact that 'my most important tests in my entire key stage two education' (my teachers' words, not mine) will be over. But look out for any during the week. I may actually be wide awake enough to write in my spare time.

**Vegita43: **Does a day count as waiting? And does this have enough detail for ya? I swear, detail is hard for me to put in. It always has been. And what do you mean escaped?

**Launigsiae: **Thanks!

**Sword of Darkness: **Yah, I know it was short, but it was a hard chapter. I was procrastinating all day with it (as oppose to this one, where I couldn't actually get on the computer to write it). Here's more.

**Hi Im Crazy: **I love the name! And how many time do I have to tell reviewers that this pairings isn't weird, just uncommon?! And stop with the whoa's! But thanks anyway!

**Madfoot Moony: **NO WAY WOULD I GIVE ONE OF MY FAVOURITE CHARACTERS THE KISS WITHOUT A FAIR TRIAL! Come to think of it... NO WAY WOULD I EVER GIVE ONE OF MY FAVOURITE CHARACTERS THE KISS! Oh, but thanks for the luck! I may need it!

**Paladin3030: **Thank you! I needed the nice soothing flames, though I don't think I would have if it wasn't for my dad. So _you're_ the one who posted that challenge? Good! I know who you are! You gave me a fair few ideas for what could happen because of it! "Uncle Harry" (that sends me into hysterics, by the way) will come out of Tonk's mouth before long. Probably followed by a lot of yelling from someone else.

**Headmaster Cromwell: **Err, okay, I'll go there as soon as my computer decides to let me go to any geocities sites.

**ngfngfngfmnfmghmnghjghjghttrhythyjgh,mhgfjgh,: **You're names just keep getting stranger and stranger, you know? Not that I'm complaining, of course! Oh, and the wait is over my friend.

**The Vampire Story Hunter: **That explanation's to come soon.

**jeangab057: **Here it is! What did you think?

**padfootjr23: **Yes, Auntie Bellatrix! You can blame Paladin3030 for that idea! All because of a simple little challenge he decided to post on my Yahoo! Group! *blushes* Thanks! I love praise over the internet! Just not in real life!

**Zaln: **You sound like the sort of person who may become obsessed with this. It's actually really easy to do. Thanks though! I did!

**gaul1: **Thanks and thanks! I need all of the look I can get! I _should _be revising right now... if I think about it. But it's not my fault I find maths, English and science boring if I could be doing something more fu, like reading or writing fanfiction!

Okay, that's enough of my yammering. I'll update this now. Then it'll be time for me to read more fanfics again! (Okay, so I should be in bed, but I don't wanna be)


	13. Chapter 13

**A/N: **Okay, now I am so gonna make sure I break the 100,000 word barrier with this fic! It'll be the first time I've ever done it, but I need to do it! To prove something to myself! So each of the chapters now are going to go into double figures on the number of pages I use on Word. Hopefully. It'll mean less frequent updates (something which, so far on this, I've prided myself on being able to do) but they will be longer than the usual 3 pages I try to get to.

**Disclaimer: **Harry Potter and associated items, people and places all belong to JK Rowling, and any similarities to them, or if they are mentioned, whilst completely deliberate, does not mean to infringe on any laws.

**Chapter 13**

"Hey, you okay?"

Bella had just walked into one of the bedrooms at Grimmauld Place to find Harry sitting on the bed with his head in his hands. When he looked up at her she could see all of the pain and suffering he had gone through in his eyes for a moment, though it quickly vanished. So quickly, in fact, that she felt she could have imagined it.

"What? Oh, yeah, I'm fine," Harry replied, smiling slightly, the sort of smile that, whilst it showed sadness, also showed some, if not much, happiness.

Bella looked at him disbelievingly. After they had spent a couple of weeks in forced company in Azkaban, and another couple of weeks together when they had been travelling, she could quite easily tell that he was lying.

"You sure?"

"Yeah, I was just thinking. I think it's just hit me that I can't go back to Hogwarts again."

"You will go back," Bella said firmly. "I'm sure of it."

"How?" Harry asked her. "I'm a convicted criminal, and the entire world knows it. There's no chance for me to go back there. I can't even go to another magical school. They'll know about it as well."

He could feel his eyes starting to water slightly. The thought of never going back to Hogwarts really got to him. It had been the only place he had ever been able to call home.

"Hey, cheer up," Bella said kindly, in a tone that seemed relatively like one Mrs Weasley would have used. "It'll be okay."

Harry nodded slightly, though he didn't feel like cheering up at all, or that it would be okay. At that particular moment it felt as if nothing would ever be okay again. Ever.

"I wanted to talk to you anyway."

Looking at her curiously, he raised an eyebrow.

"Why?"

"I just do," she said, sighing. "There are just some things I need to say."

The two sat in silence for a moment, whilst Bella figured out the best way for her to talk to him.

"Go on," Harry said, trying to urge her onto speaking. It wanted to get this over quickly. It wasn't that he didn't enjoy being around her now, in fact it was just the opposite. He enjoyed it. But he just needed to think a few things through.

"Right," she said, taking a deep breath. She might as well get this over with. "I… I… That's a nice shirt."

"Err… Is that al you wanted to say?" he asked bewildered.

"No! It's just I'm not really sure what to say. I guess I… I want to apologise for what happened in the Department of Mysteries before. What with Sirius and everything," she said, mentally berating herself. That wasn't what she wanted to say! But it was better than nothing, she supposed.

Harry nodded again blankly, obviously remembering back to it. The expression on his face appearing to be pained slightly, showing it immediately. It was a raw subject for him.

_*****Flashback****_

_One pair was still battling, apparently unaware of the new arrival. Harry saw Sirius duck Bellatrix's jet of red light: he was laughing at her._

_"Come one, you can do better than that!" he yelled, his voice echoing around the cavernous room._

_The second jet of light hit him squarely on his chest._

_The laughter had not quite died from his face, but his eyes widened with shock._

_Harry released Neville, though he was unaware of doing so. He was jumping down the steps again, pulling out his wand, as Dumbledore, too, turned towards the dais._

_It seemed to take Sirius an age to fall: his body curved in a graceful arc as he sank backwards through the ragged veil hanging from the arch._

_Harry saw with a look of mingled fear and surprise on his godfather's wasted, once-handsome face as he fell through the ancient doorway and disappeared behind the veil, which fluttered for a moment as though in a high wind, the fell back into place._

_Harry heard Bellatrix Lestrange's triumphant scream, but knew it meant nothing - Sirius had only fallen through the archway, he would reappear on the other side any second…_

_But Sirius did not reappear._

_*****End Flashback*****_

After a few more moments, Bella could take the silence no longer.

"Harry, I mean it! I had no idea what I was doing back then! I still believed that all muggleborns were scum at the time."

"I know."

There was more silence that followed, until it was broken again, this time by Harry.

"What happened after when you woke up and I was still unconscious? I never did find out the details."

"Nothing much. After I woke up they gave me Veritaserum to find out what had happened. I can't remember much about when they were questioning me, only that they discovered that I had switched sides in the war," she said lightly. There was more, but she didn't need to explain it at the minutes.

Harry nodded again. He knew she wasn't telling the entire story, but decided not to push it.

Somewhere in southern Italy, just inside a small village, a black haired man was trying to talk to one of the locals.

"Chi sono voi?" asked the local, confused at this man's sudden appearance.

"Sorry, I don't understand. I need to get to England," the man said, speaking slowly and carefully.

"E non capite Intalian normale? Ho chiesto chi eravate!"

"Don't you understand plain English? I'm trying to get to England!"

"Se non state andando parlare una lingua normale allora vada in qualche luogo altrimenti! Nessuno intorno qui capiranno una parola che dite!"

"I give up! I'm going to find someone who understands plain English!" the stranger said, storming off.

"Infine! Capite! Ottenga perso! Sì lo avete sentito! camminare di conservazione! Quello è esso! E non ritornano!"

Back at Grimmauld Place Harry was thinking. Bella had left moments before, and he couldn't have helped but notice how nervous she was acting around him.

Before she had come he had been thinking about Ron and Hermione. He knew he wouldn't be able to make up with Ron again. Especially after last night. He knew Ron wanted to be friends again, but he knew he couldn't just make up. He couldn't be friends with him when he had doubted him so much.

But Hermione, on the other hand… she had believed in him. He knew that they would be able to get along again, though he hadn't seen her since the end of the school year. They just hadn't come across one another since he and Bella had gotten to Grimmauld Place.

Down in the Kitchen, Remus was leaning against a counter, staring off into space when Bella came in, but his eyes snapped to her quickly enough.

"What do you want?" he snarled. He really didn't like her.

"Nothing," she said sitting down and sighing. "Nothing at all."

Remus growled at her. Whenever Bella was around he always managed to get himself into a bad mood.

"What?" she asked him, surprised by his behaviour. Well, not really. She had been responsible for one of his best friend's death, after all.

"Nothing," Remus said harshly. "Other than the fact the person who murdered my best friend is sitting right in front of me, showing absolutely no remorse at all!"

"I can only guess how you feel," Bella sighed. "Having me in the same room as you. But I can assure you, I do regret what happened."

"How could you? You hated Sirius!"

"…I didn't hate him. Sure, the two of us had never seen eye-to-eye, but I never hated him."

"Then why did you kill him?"

Bella kept silent for a moment before answering. It was, in truth, a very good question.

"Do you know what it's like to feel as though you heart has been turned to stone? To never really feel anything? Not hate nor love? Not anything? Only physical pain?"

Remus slowly shook his head, unsure of where this would lead.

"Well that's what I was like until only a few weeks ago. It's true I didn't feel a thing when I killed him, but I basically had no heart to feel with. But now I regret _every_ action I've done in my life."

"What changed?" asked Remus quietly. So quietly that she almost didn't catch it.

"What?"

"What changed? What changed so that you started to regret it?"

"Harry happened."

"What?!"

"I said Harry happened."

"I heard, but what do you mean?"

Bella looked at his bemused expression for a moment. Normally she wouldn't have been able to hold n her laughter at the sight of one of the know-it-alls that Hogwarts had turned out being confused, but this time she didn't feel like laughing.

"Can't you guess?"

Remus' eyes widened as he got the full meaning of what she said.

"You love him, don't you?"

Ron had been in a state disbelief ever since the previous night. He hadn't expected Harry to forgive him straight away, but judging from his behaviour towards him he wouldn't ever forgive him. There seemed to be no chance of them ever being friends again.

He knew the two of them had fought a couple of times in the past, forth year in the time between the time when Harry had been named as the forth champion and the first task immediately coming to mind, along with a couple of others, but it had never been as serious as this. 

Thinking back he should have realised Harry was innocent, but he couldn't of at the time. Hermione had called him pig-headed and stubborn on more than one occasion, and now he realised how right she was. And it wasn't every day he would admit to that.

At the latest Death Eater meeting Voldemort was extremely bored. The only reason he had called it was because there were a couple of new Death Eater's joining the ranks. He would have much rather been torturing a few muggles or mudbloods, but he was always there for initiations, as were all of the other Death Eaters. It was a kind of a tradition.

The Death Eaters, he had decided a few days back, were all incompetent. They hadn't even managed to recapture Bella and Potter. Surely any buffoon could have managed it. Especially when it was about fifteen on two. But no, the imbecile's had managed to mess even that up!

"Do you swear loyalty to you Lord and Master, the Dark Lord? To never betray him? To obey his every command?"

Voldemort heard the new Death eater give his ascent. It was a standard vow all of the Death Eaters had taken before they received their marks.

The last new Death Eater took the vow and was given a mark. Once dismissed all of the Death Eaters left quickly, not wanting to stay any longer than they had to, except for one.

"You wished to see me, My Lord?" asked the one remaining Death Eater.

"Yes, Snape. I need to know what information you have learnt from the Old Fool."

"My Lord, Dumbledore tells me very little nowadays, he-"

"I do not want to hear your excuses Snape! Just tell me what you know!"

Snape felt the mark on his arm burn slightly as the Dark Lord was angered. It worked in much the same way as Harry Potter's scar, only it did not allow Voldemort access to his follower's minds. He could get in without any trouble when it came to that, unless they had their minds occluded.

"I apologise, My Lord," Snape said, bowing his head as if he was truly sorry. "The only information I have managed to gather is that Potter and Bellatrix have shown up at the fool's headquarters."

"Cruccio," said Voldemort almost carelessly, pointing his wand to Snape.

Snape fell to the ground, writhing in pain as a scream escaped his mouth. He was powerless to stop the convulsions in his body from the worst pain anyone could wish not to feel. After several torturous minutes under the curse, it was lifted.

"That isss not good enough Ssseverusss," The Dark Lord, stressing his S's, showing how angry he was. "The next time I summon you I expect better."

"Yes, My Lord," Snape half mumbled, before bowing and leaving. He was fortunate enough to just get away with a single cruccio. Normally he would have gotten more.

**A/N: **Damn! This isn't as long as I was hoping I would get up to! It's the longest chapter yet, so I suppose that's okay.

The translations for what was said by the Italian man said are as follows:

Chi sono voi? - Who are you?

E non capite Intalian normale? Ho chiesto chi eravate! - Don't you understand plain Intalian? I asked who you were!

Se non state andando parlare una lingua normale allora vada in qualche luogo altrimenti! Nessuno intorno qui capiranno una parola che dite! - If you are not going to speak a normal language then go somewhere else! No one around here will understand a word you say!

Infine! Capite! Ottenga perso! Sì lo avete sentito! camminare di conservazione! Quello è esso! E non ritornano! - Finally! You understand! Get lost! Yes you heard me! keep walking! That is it! And don't come back!

No, I don't speak Spanish. I just know a place where I can get it all translated for me. So if it's wrong I can blame that!

**gaul1: **Okay, thanks!

**Madfoot Moony: **I'll try.

**Vegita43: **Ah, so that's what you wanted more detail for! I'll have to put that in later on.

**Sword of Darkness: **Yeah, it's always fun to yell at Ickle Ronniekins!

**Hi Im Crazy: **It's okay. And that makes two of us. I thought it was weird when I started to write it! But now it seems as normal as a lot of other pairings that would never happen in the canon that there are out there.

**Launigsiae: **Do you mean Harry and Hermione, or Harry and Ron? Because the second one is unlikely to happen. The first one should though.

**jeangab057: **Yup! He did! Hopefully the Order should talk with them next chapter.

**Hvughehewuiqquuiuiuieivebfheghfeireavivmutruifdguyuirenfufdjvhtruirhjhyrejighuduijgroibvjbnfjbnuifibgnuiboglkljuigrhuiwuipquyifdfjdgfjr: **Could you're name get any longer? And no, that is not a challenge! But the update is here. And long too.

**Paladin3030: **You do realise that I'm probably going to get lots of inspiration from you now? You gave me the idea for the whole interlude in Italy (hey, they _used_ to speak Latin there!). And Auntie Bellatrix. And soon Uncle Harry! Here's the next chapter anyways.

Okay, that's about it from me this chapter. Next update probably will be next Saturday. Look out for it some time at the week-end though.


	14. Chapter 14

**A/N: **Yes! My SATs are so totally over! Wahoo! No more SATs ever again! Yes! I just hope I did okay on them... especially since the maths and Macbeth essay one was so hard.

And before I forget, last chapter, at the end, I said it was Spanish. I meant Italian. Sorry for the confusion. I'm an idiot.

**Disclaimer: **I do not own Harry Potter or any related characters or places.

**Chapter 14**

****

"Potreste muoversi prego? Sembrate essere nel senso!"

He looked down at the kid that was talking to him. Why could they just understand he didn't speak a word of Italian?

"I don't understand a word you're saying kid," he said aspirated, before trying the simplest form of communication he could.

"Me..." he said, pointing to himself. "No..." he shook his head. "Speaky!" he finished up by making what looked like a pincer action with his hand.

"Siete un'aragosta?" the boy asked, whilst a woman came running up to him.

"Bambino! Quante volte hanno vi ho detto contro la comunicazione con sconosciuti!" she said to him, obviously angry.

"Ma madre! Non capisce una parola che stia dicendo!"

"Smetta di fare sulle storia ed ottenga all'interno!" she said again, before turning to him and smiling. "Chiedo scusa per il mio figlio, a volte lui non penso a che cosa dice."

"Huh? Sorry lady, but I don't understand a word you're saying! I don't even know where I am!"

"Stupore! Il mio figlio era di destra! Realmente non parlate una parola di italiano!"

The woman walked off laughing, leaving a very puzzled person behind.

_Harry looked around a mist-enshrouded forest for a moment, wondering idly how he'd gotten there before he realised it was a dream. Or nightmare depending how you looked at it._

_It was dark, the few rays of sunlight that were there were breaking through the canopy and the mist onto the damp, leaf covered ground beneath his feet._

_The trees surrounding him looked ancient, almost magical, as if they could come alive at any moment and either guide him to safety or kill him without a second thought. It all looked surprisingly possible, mainly due to the fact that the trees appeared to have faces in their bark._

_For some unknown reason, Harry felt as if he was being drawn to a particular spot... drawn through the trees and onwards._

_He passed sycamore, oak, ash, pine and many others on his way..._

_He was getting close to wherever he was being drawn too, he could feel it..._

_Just a bit further…_

_More trees passed, the light fading around him, the mist increasing, the few signs of life, squirrels and the occasional bird that he had managed to spot earlier gradually vanishing._

_He was almost there…_

_So close…_

_He could see that the trees were passing with greater speed now, indicating that he had picked up speed instead._

_There was no light penetrating now, the only reason he was able to see being because of an eerie glow that the mist as giving off._

_He was so close he could practically taste it in the air…_

_He could almost smell it…_

_So close…_

_Finally coming to a stop, he knew he was there, though where 'there' was was a complete mystery to him._

_Peering around his latest surrounding, he saw that there was very little to see. Everything was pitch black, with the exception of the glow from the mist… and the woman who was standing in front of him._

_She had long, blond hair that was slightly wavy, and had the front two locks of it tied back whilst the rest fell loosely about her shoulders. Her skin was pale, an almost ghostly while, her eyes a piercing ice blue. On her head lay a tiara of delicate twisted gold, elven from what he could remember from one of the books he had read recently, with a pair of leaves twisted near the centre, and she wore a robe that seemed to give off an unearthly glow by itself._

_"Are you ready, Harry Potter?" she asked him in a voice like none he had heard, whilst her eyes seemed to pierce into his very soul._

_"W-what?" he stammered, his heart thudding slightly in his chest._

_"Are you ready, Harry Potter?" she repeated for him patiently._

_"R-ready f-for what?" he asked nervously, doing an almost perfect impression of Quirrel._

_The woman laughed, and a knowing smile appeared on her face._

_"You will see," she said, as Harry felt himself being pulled away._

Back in Grimmauld place Harry awoke with a start as he realised where he was. He was back in the safety of Order Headquarters. He had never left. It had just been a dream… hadn't it? It had felt real, after all…

Shaking his head, Harry looked out of the window to see it was still dark outside. It was too early to get up really.

He sighed, and walked over to the window. There were lots of starts out, each one a bright point in the sky, and, though most were nothing more than a simple pinprick in size, but they all helped light up the sky with the help of the moon, the brightest start of all having a deep place in his heart.

It was Sirius, the dog star.

It was funny, really, the fact that Sirius had only come into his life at the end of his third year, and, truth be told, had barely been around, and still his death had hurt him so. It was shocking really, how close the two of them had become in the short amount of time they had spent together in total. It could have been because he was the one link to his father for him, and for Sirius, he was the person most like his old best friend.

Something's were unexplainable though. The amount of time in total they had spent together that Harry could remember was very little, yet he had cared immensely for Sirius. What he couldn't believe was he had practically forgiven his killer. That was one of the unexplainable things. Just like the fact that he hadn't noticed an owl flying up right in front of his eyes, carrying a letter to him through the open window.

He looked up in shock, before quickly untying the letter attached to its leg. It seemed a foreign bird. It definitely wasn't a native bird… but he knew no one from another country, besides those who he had met during the triwizards tournament, and he was almost certain they wouldn't be writing to him.

However, Harry's shock only deepened, as he saw the handwriting, and then the signature at the bottom - it wasn't true! He was dead! The person who had written to him was dead! He knew it! But here was proof of the opposite, sitting right in front of him.

Parts of the letter, or note, as it was so short, were smudged, though he had no idea what from.

_Harry,_

_Please… I need help… I'm in __Italy__… …help… please._

_Sirius_

**A/N: **Okay, congrats to everyone who guessed the mystery person was Sirius. Good on ya!

Another thing I want to say is that I'm not being racist or anything about Italy when I have Sirius say that Italy always drives him made, but when you're in a country that you don't speak the language of you kind of do get driven insane. I guess.

Okay, the translations from Italian are as follows:

Potreste muoversi prego? Sembrate essere nel senso! - Could you please move? You happen to be in the way!

Siete un'aragosta? - Are you a lobster?

Bambino! Quante volte hanno vi ho detto contro la comunicazione con sconosciuti! - Child! How many times have I told you against talking to strangers!

Ma madre! Non capisce una parola che stia dicendo! - But mum! He doesn't understand a word I'm saying!

Smetta di fare sulle storia ed ottenga all'interno! - Stop making up stories and get inside!

Chiedo scusa per il mio figlio, a volte lui non penso a che cosa dice - I apologise for my son, sometimes he doesn't think about what he says

Stupore! Il mio figlio era di destra! Realmente non parlate una parola di italiano! - Amazing! My son was right! You really don't speak a word of Italian!

Another thing I wanted to say is I've given up on longer chapters for this fic (I gave up on that idea quickly, didn't I?) but I will be getting my updates up to the speed they were at before hopefully.

**Vegita43: **Yah, I suppose. I just wanted a shock for Remus last chapter.

**Madfoot Moony: **Thanks, and his reaction? Well, when he finally realises it will be fun to put.

**Launigsiae: **Okay!

**Hi Im Crazy: **blushes Thanks! But I only update this often because I can't leave the story alone for too long.

**helo: **I will.

**INMH: **giggles Correct!

**gaul1: **Err, yeah, that was a mistake on my part. I meant to put Italian, but for some reason my brain went dead again and I put Spanish.

**Sword of Darkness: **I have no idea about that as of yet.

**Eaglesage21: **Okay, here's the update.

**The Vampire Story Hunter: **You're impatient, you know that? I'll go write the first chapter of it once I put this up. So, hopefully, very soon. And I'd noticed about the chapter lengths of Dark fics. I should hopefully be able to get to that length. If I'm lucky.

**Zaraky: **Yeah, I'll try and get longer chapters, but I tend to compensate for lack of length with really quick updates (at some points nearly daily).

**Paladin3030: **The Iscariot? What are they? I've seen you're ideas though. I may 'borrow' a few.

**padfootjr23: **Yep! As you can see from above!

**Lanfear1: **Short response: Thanks!

**jeangab057: **Thanks you!


	15. Chapter 15

**A/N:** I'm updating this yet again. Nightwishsama bribed me by saying she'll send me a song by a band she's gotten me obsessed with!

**Disclaimer:** The lawyers say I'm not allowed to own Harry Potter, as he already belongs to the author, but I can't see why.

**Chapter 15**

"Signore, siete un idiot completo ed assoluto con le tagliatelle per i cervelli."

"Huh?" asked Sirius, as eloquently as ever. A kid had been annoying him for hours in Italian, all because he seemed to have learnt he could say anything and the person he was talking to wouldn't understand a word.

"Vendete del formaggio? Realmente dovreste, voi assomigliate ad un venditore del formaggio."

"Go away kid," he said, getting slightly annoyed.

"What's fanno torto al signore? Avete slacciato il vostro pollo senza testa?"

"I hate kids," Sirius said sourly, as the child continued to bug him.

"Dove avete messo il vostro foro del coniglio?"

"Go away."

"Hey, dove sono i vostri pantaloni?"

"Why do you hate me?"

"Che cosa è quel suono? L'OH, it's soltanto le vostre due cellule di cervelli che sconcertano insieme."

"Leave me alone!"

"Che cosa è errato? Perchè alambiccosiete preoccupandosi iete preoccupandosi di ascoltare comunque me? La maggior parte della gente che don't capiscono italiano dà abbastanza rapidamente in su su me!"

Groaning, Sirius had finally had enough and walked off, but he managed to catch one more thing from the kid.

"Ho gradito quell'uomo. Realmente ha rimasto ed ascoltato me più lungamente di c'è ne degli altri!"

Wormtail rubbed his hands together in his nervousness as he awaited his inevitable punishment.

He had been standing outside of the room for hours, awaiting untold amounts of torture at the hands of the person he had betrayed the first people that had ever been kind to him for in order to live.

He had no idea what this punishment was about. The last thing he had failed to do that he could remember was to find out any information that Snape may have been withholding from his Lord and Master, and that had been months ago, so he had paid for it already, but, knowing the Dark Lord, it was probably something else altogether.

Finally, the door opened, and out walked Lucius Malfoy, who looked down on him in disdain as he limped passed - limped?! Shit! If one of the Dark Lord's most favoured followers had been tortured so badly (after all, the Dark Lord rarely left his Death Eaters, and almost certainly not his favourites, be tortured until they had something such as a limp or broken arm) unless they had done something incredibly terrible, or he was just incredibly pissed off. Usually the second one followed the first. And now he stood very little chance of getting out of there uninjured.

Wormtail decided there and then it was better to enter and get his punishment over and done with before the Dark lord got any more pissed at whoever was supposed to be going in next - him.

"Cruccio!"

Wormtail collapsed on the ground, screaming and writhing in pain, until Voldemort got tired of his screaming and cast a silencing charm on him, so then he was screaming silently instead.

"Did you really think you could get away with betraying me?!" Voldemort hissed, before turning to Nagini and spoke to her. Nagini hissed in response before leaving the room and Voldemort released the cruciatus.

"Tell me, did you?!"

Wormtail tried to speak, or at least he looked like he did, before Voldemort remembered the silencing charm and removed it.

"Now tell me!"

"M-m-m-m-m-my L-l-l-l-l-l-l-l-l-lord! I-I-I-I s-s-swear I-I w-w-w-w-w-w-would n-n-n-never b-b-b-b-b-bet-t-trayed y-y-y-y-y-y-ou! I-I-I n-n-nev-v-ver w-w-would! M-m-m-m-m-m-m-m-master! P-p-please!"

"Cruccio! Do not lie to me Wormtail! I know you have betrayed me. I have known for a long time that someone had been, but I never expected it to be you. After all, where would you go?"

Voldemort lifted the curse just long enough for Wormtail to try to explain.

"M-m-m-m-m-my L-l-l-l-l-l-lord! I-"

"Cruccio! I do not want to hear your excuses Wormtail! I know it was you! Do not even try to deny it!"

Wormtail barely heard Voldemort over the sound of his own screaming and the intense pain.

"I'm tired of your games Pettigrew," Voldemort said, lifting the curse, and referring to Wormtail, for once, by something other than his old school nickname.

"M-m-m-my L-l-l-l-lord! P-p-ple-" Wormtail begged, trying to plea his case and innocence of that one thing once again.

"Avada Kedavra!"

Wormtail was dead before his back even hit the floor, a contorted expression of extreme fear and horror on his face. Here ended the like of Peter Judas Pettigrew.

"Hmmm... Maybe I should have used occlumency on him. Oh well, no big loss," Voldemort said, shrugging.

**A/N: **Do not ask me why I decided to kill off Wormtail. I never liked him after what he did to Siri, and since I don't want any more than 2 marauders (even if Wormtail can't truly be counted as one) in this fic, I had to kill one off. And Wormtail was the perfect target.

The translations from Italian are as follows:

Signore, siete un idiot completo ed assoluto con le tagliatelle per i cervelli- Sir, you are a complete and utter idiot with noodles for brains

Vendete del formaggio? Realmente dovreste, voi assomigliate ad un venditore del formaggio. - Do you sell any cheese? You really should, you look like a cheese seller.

What's fanno torto al signore? Avete slacciato il vostro pollo senza testa? - What's wrong sir? Did you loose your headless chicken?

Dove avete messo il vostro foro del coniglio? - Where did you put your rabbit hole?

Hey, dove sono i vostri pantaloni? - Hey, where are your pants?

Che cosa è quel suono? L'OH, it's soltanto le vostre due cellule di cervelli che sconcertano insieme. - What is that sound? Oh, it's only your two brains cells rattling together.

Che cosa è errato? Perchè alambiccosiete preoccupandosi iete preoccupandosi di ascoltare comunque me? La maggior parte della gente che don't capiscono italiano dà abbastanza rapidamente in su su me! - What is wrong? Why are you still bothering to listen to me anyway? Most people who don't understand Italian give up on me pretty quickly!

Ho gradito quell'uomo. Realmente ha rimasto ed ascoltato me più lungamente di c'è ne degli altri! - I liked that man. He actually stayed and listened to me longer than any of the others!

For those of you who are interested and don't already know, I have started to post the AU version of this where Harry goes dark. It's been pretty popular so far. That's pretty much it from me at the minute, except the review responses, so here they are.

**Serena24: **Thanks, and yeah, I know about that one. It's pretty good too. I will.

**The Vampire Story Hunter: **Okay and thanks!

**gaul1: **That could come up in the future. And it probably will once I work out what the purpose of that dream was.

**Paladin3030: **Thanks for the description, and for the ideas. I don't know what I'd do without some of them.

**Hi Im Crazy: **Yeah, it can seem unrealistic that they could have gotten so close in the short amount of time they were together, so I had to explain it. I take it you like Siri then. And, by default, you probably don't like Wormtail (or Wormy as I like to call him).

**Launigsiae:** Yeah, from what I can tell that one updates pretty quickly.

**Nightwish-sama: **No fair! You shouldn't be bribing me with Nightwish! Even if you are my only way to get more of their songs at the minute.

**jeangab057: **I know. It's not fair... but an easy way to add some humour!

**TopQuark: **The good interesting or the bad interesting?


	16. Chapter 16

**A/N: **Woohoo! Over 150 reviews! Woohoo! I love you guys! And this chapter may finally have some action! And the little annoying Italian kid may well be back!

Oh, and on the advice of a reviewer, I'm gonna put the translations next to each of the phrases. You'll notice 'em cos they'll be surrounded by [ and ] and in italics.

**Disclaimer: **I do not own Harry Potter or any related items.

**Chapter 16**

****

"Oh no," Sirius groaned, as he spotted the kid who had somehow found him again. "Not you again!"

"È qualche cosa di errato?" the kid asked him, a strange expression on his face. _[Is something wrong?]_

"Huh? Me no speaky!" Sirius almost yelled. Why the hell had this kid come back to bug him? Why the hell had this kid followed him?!

He had been wandering around the Italian countryside ever since he had managed to get that letter off to Harry - and since then he had pretty much been plagued with the little demon.

Suddenly the kid dissolved into a fit of giggles at his word and Sirius instantly knew he was in trouble. That laugh had sounded hyper. The kid looked no older than ten and didn't understand a word of English. A hyper ten year old that couldn't understand he said could be a problem.

"Che cosa è la radice quadrata di cinquecento e novanta sette? Assomigli dei capelli esso siete su fuoco. Guardisi dai coniglietti. Che cosa siete nomi? Il mio nome è bene..., io lo ha dimenticato. Ma opinione di let's è paralume per ora. Perchè che voi assomigli alla a demented la bambola di Barbie? E come mai la vostra faccia è andare rosso?" the kid said rapidly. _[What is the Square root of five hundred and ninety seven? You hair looks like it's on fire. Beware the bunnies. What's you name? My name is... well, I forgot it. But let's say it is lampshade for now. Why do you look like a demented Barbie doll? And how come your face's going red?]_

"SHUT THE HELL UP, YOU GOD FORSAKEN BRAT!" Sirius yelled at the kid. Ever since he had woken up in Italy after falling through the veil he had been irritable, and this kid was doping nothing to stop that. He had been getting angrier and angrier all the way through the kid's little hyper… rambling, and he had finally snapped. Some people lived to be annoying.

The kid stared at him, his mouth wide open in shock. He blinked a couple of times before dissolving into another fit of giggles. Hyper giggles. Incredibly hyper giggles.

"What did I do to deserve being plagued with this?" Sirius groaned, praying he would get away from their quickly. The kid giggles some more and ran off into some nearby bushes.

"Do you want that list in alphabetical or chronological order?" asked a sneering voice from behind him, causing Sirius to whirl around, and, upon seeing who is was, fix a scowl upon his face.

"Snivellus," he snarled at the man he had, in a way, tortured during their school years. "What the hell are you doing here?"

"I'm here, mutt," Snape sneered with venom in response. "You get you back to headquarters. And I'm only here because of Dumbledore. If I had my way I'd leave you here, but Albus seems to think you're a benefit to the Order. I can't understand why though."

"Shut it Snape, and just get me out of here!"

Snape through a portkey at Sirius, granted a little harder than was needed, which he promptly caught. It activated and, feeling a tug around his navel, he felt himself being pulled to his family's ancestral home and the current home of the Order of the Phoenix. Snape disapparated away moments later, muttering a few choice phrases about introducing certain mutts to the receiving end of the Avada Kedavra.

Chuckling slightly, the Italian kid came out from the bush he had hid in during the encounter between Sirius and Snape, his face slowly morphing from that of a hyper ten year old to something entirely different and much older.

He no longer had the same short, dark brown hair when his face stopped changing as he had done when he had been annoying Sirius, but longer, and black, with blood red streaks in it. His eyes had changed. Previously they had been olive in colour. Now they were the colour of fire, with specks of other colours too and had lost the innocence of youth they had held before. His skin was paler, almost a ghostly white, whilst his lips had turned a deep red. He was taller too, over a foot taller than he had been before, with muscles to match the growth spurt he just seemed to have had.

"Verremo a contatto di ancora, Sirius Black, noi verremo a contatto di ancora..." _[We shall meet again, Sirius Black, we shall meet again…]_

Bellatrix Lestrange - no, Black. She would have to get used to be being called that again. She couldn't go on being called Lestrange anymore. It would be pointless. Lestrange was the name of her Death Eater husband. She was no longer a Death Eaters, so there was no way she would be called that.

Anyway, Bellatrix Black was sitting in the kitchen of Grimmauld Place, once again surprised at how neglected the place was. She couldn't stop being amazed by how bad the place had gotten in the ten years or so between her aunt's death and when Sirius had finally gotten around to trying to fix it up to a certain degree. But only to a certain degree.

Sure, it had been made safer, and you were able to live in it again, unlike what she had heard from her annoying little niece, who had adopted the most annoying habit of calling her 'Auntie Bella', and, by the sounds of things, was on the verge of calling Harry 'Uncle Harry'. Talk about annoying.

Sometimes she couldn't believe the number of annoying people she was related too. There was Tonks (she had yet to learn the first name of the girl), Lucius Malfoy, Draco Malfoy, Narcissa, a lot of people she had only met once, a whole load of Death Eaters, the Weasleys (well, the majority of them) and several other people to name but a few. Some people were truly annoying. it must have been hereditary.

It was cold outside. Dark too. It was like it had been when she and Harry had been travelling to Grimmauld Place. And from what she had heard from some of the members of the Order it was an unexplained phenomenon. What ever was causing this strange weather all over the country must have been really powerful.

Hermione Granger was confused. Now that's a phrase you won't hear often. Usually Hermione Granger and confused were never came into the same sentence, unless it was to confirm the opposite, which would, most likely, prove this entire point completely invalid, but let's not go into that now. The point was she was confused, which is a very rare thing indeed. Almost apocalyptically rare, but don't go running to hills just yet, as it didn't happen quite as infrequently as that.

She was confused for a good reason too. A very good reason, in fact. She was confused because of certain people, such as Harry and Ron.

Over the summer the unbreakable trio had been broken through the times and circumstances they had been through, the inseparable three had been separated through petty fights and Harry's imprisonment in Azkaban, even though he had been innocent, the Gryffindor Golden Ones were quite as golden as they had been at the start of the summer, which had only begun only a matter of weeks earlier.

She wasn't even too certain of how it had happened, even though she had pretty much been there for the majority of it. She knew that when Harry had been sent to Azkaban she and Ron had been united on his innocence, but after Voldemort had kidnapped him from Azkaban Ron's faith in Harry has wavered whilst she had still believed in the truth, causing the two of them to bicker and fight even more than usual. Then Harry had come back. She hadn't forgiven Ron, but he had forgiven her. After all, there was nothing to forgive. She could still remember the conversation they had had perfectly.

_Flashback_

_"Harry?" she asked timidly, entering the room Harry was now staying in. He wasn't staying in the same room as Ron. They couldn't. Harry would, pretty much, bite Ron's head off every time._

_"What?!" Harry scowled, but his expression softened when he saw her. _

_"I just wanted to talk," she said carefully, not exactly sure of what to say._

_"What about? Oh- if you're worried about me and Ron's fight, there's no way I'm going to forgive him."_

_"You will eventually. You two are too close to-"_

_"No Hermione, me and Ron were close. After he stopped thinking I wasn't a Death Eaters the friendship we had stopped."_

_Hermione thought for a moment, before remembering how stubborn Harry could be when he wanted._

_"That's not what I wanted to talk about anyway."_

_"What then? If you're thinking that you and me aren't friends anymore then…"_

_"You don't hate me?" she asked, perking up slightly._

_"No, why would I hate you? You actually believe me, as opposed to the lying son of a-"_

_"Harry!"_

_"What?!"_

_End Flashback_

The relationship between her, Harry and Ron was a lot more confusing than it had been before, but the one between Harry and Bellatrix was even more so, though Professor Lupin seemed to know the most about it, strangely enough.

Both Harry and Bellatrix had spent a short amount of time in Azkaban together, which was nowhere near the full amount of time they had been sentenced to by the ministry, along with the amount of time it had taken them to travel from Voldemort's fortress to the Order Headquarters. Over that time the two of them had gotten close, and still were, especially after they had discovered that Sirius was still alive.

Speaking of Sirius, she knew he would be arriving soon. Or he should be.

"Ah, dammit!"

The portkey Sirius had been using had arrived at Grimmauld Place, and had dropped him off unceremoniously on the kitchen table.

"Oh, hi Bellatrix," he said calmly, before doing a double take. "Bellatrix?! What the hell are you doing here?!"

**A/N: **I couldn't resist! Oh, and sorry about the longer wait. My mum's been restricting my time on the computer. She never used to. Hopefully the next chapters should be out sooner. I'm planning on actually writing them then typing them up now, instead of just typing spontaneously. That should work, and hopefully the chapters will be better as I edit things as I typer them up.

For those of you that are reading the AU version I will be slower updating that, at least until I finish this. This fic is currently my main priority, but once it's finished I will probably devote much more time and energy on it. But I will be updating it, with long-ish chapters too.

**Shadow Dancer: **Thanks!

**Madfoot Moony: **Yeah, I was kinda in a hurry when I wrote that, and I just really wanted to get it up. And whilst it's true Wormtail owed his life to Harry, I just couldn't really see him repaying his debt.

**Amscray: **Thanks!And in answer to your question, you'll just have to wait and see.

**Vegita43: **Next chapter, I swear you'll find out!

**jgfjn: **The chapters are shrinking in size? You sure? I know I'm not very consistant with my chapter sizes but I'm sure I'd notice if they were shrinking.

**Launigsiae: **Is okay!

**Hi Im Crazy: **Me too. I knew the moment I first wrote him he would definitely be coming back! And would be relatively important too.

**The Vampire Story Hunter: **Why not?

**gaul1: **Yeah, it was to an extent. Is this one better?

**SnakeDynasty****: **It isn't? That's weird. It's sends them to me (no need to tell me I'm sad for having myself on my own author alert list). Maybe something's up. And bribery only works with some bands. Like Nightwish, and other ones that I'm obsessed with.

**Ryua**** Malfoy: **Yep! But just because he's dead doesn't mean he'll be gone.

**Harry-Potter-Rule: **Oh, sorry, my mistake. I'll fix it when I can get on the computer for long enough.

**jeangab057: **I don't know. But if it was I would be able to update more often.

**padfootjr23: **I know the feeling.


	17. Chapter 17

**A/N: **I'm baaack! MWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! And I'm using some of Nightwishsama's ideas (changed slightly, soz, Gemz, but I had to, Harry has yet to learn that Bella likes him!) for the confrontation, which I think are hilarious.

**Disclaimer: **I do not own Harry Potter or any related items. Which is so not fair. I mean, there are honest, hard-working authors out there who don't own Harry Potter because JKR won't give the characters to anyone else. Plus I want them!

**Chapter 17**

Bellatrix laughed nervously, very unsure of what to do. She stood up from the kitchen table.

"Umm, Harry-!"

"I asked you what the hell you are doing in MY house!" Sirius growled, advancing towards bellatrix.

"Umm, Sirius, dear cousin, umm-HARRY!" Ballatrix yelled, beginning to sweat, she knew that if Harry did not come in approximately two seconds, she'd be dead.

"What have you done with Harry, I'll kill you if you've even laid your dirty hands on him!?" Sirius demanded.

"Please, just let me explain! Let me AND Harry explain, you won't get an explanation if I'm dead..." Bellatrix tried to reason, holding her hands up in mid-air, most likely to show she wasn't armed.

"Where is Harry?" Sirius yet again demanded approaching her, his blood beginning to boil with every second Bellatrix was standing in his sight.

"I'm sure he's somewhere..I'll just call him again" Bellatrix laughed nervously again gulping "HARRY POTTER, GET YOUR ARSE DOWN HERE THIS INSTANT! YOU HAVE A VISITOR!"

But Harry didn't appear, therefore resulting in furious Sirius advancing towards a very nervous very frightened and an unarmed Bellatrix.

"HARRY!" Bellatrix yelled.

"Mmph...!" a muffled voice came from somewhere, it sounded distant. "Can't be arsed! Tell whoever it is to piss off!" Harry yelled down.

"But, I have a feeling you'll like him!" Bellatrix yelled back, grinning slightly.

Sirius suddenly stopped and raised an eyebrow.

"Meh..."

"Oh for Christ sakes it's frigging Sirius! Now get down here before he blows my ass back to Azkaban!"

There was the sound of movement from upstairs, which was accompanied by the patter of rushed footsteps taking the stair two or three at a time. Finally a figure burst into the room and rushed over to Sirius.

"Ooof!" Sirius said, as the wind was knocked out of him. "Okay Harry, get off of me so I can kill my cousin!"

"Sirius - you haven't heard the full story - you don't know what's been happening in the last couple of months!"

"I don't need to hear it!" he snarled at her, pushing Harry off of him, and making his way towards Bella.

"Siriu-"

"Shut it Bellatrix! You're nothing but a Death Eater!"

Bella face portrayed a look of immense hurt, and it was all Harry could stand.

"SIRIUS JEDADIAH BLACK!"

Sirius winced at the use of his full name, and turned to face his angry godson.

"How the hell did you find out my middle name?"

"I'll tell you," Harry said carefully. "Once you hear what has been happening the last few months. And if you haven't killed Bella in the process."

Sirius scowled at him, but nodded, agreeing to hear them out.

"Go on then."

Bella and Harry looked at one another, and then Bella started to talk.

"Earlier in the summer I went to Privet Drive and…"

It took several minutes to explain everything that had happened to Sirius, and by the time it was over, Sirius looked shocked.

"So… YOU'RE TELLING ME THOSE FUCKING BASTARDS IMPRISONED MY GODSON IN THE HELL WITHOUT EVEN GIVING HIMSELF TO DEFEND HIMSELF?!"

**A/N: **There it is, and it's shorter than it would have been because Nightwishsama has been bribing me with more songs. So it's her fault. But she better give me that song now! Otherwise she's in trouble!

**Launigsiae: **Thanks, I suppose it is easier to read that way.

**Hi Im Crazy: **I didn't get chance to put the Italian kid in. But there will be lots of him next chapter. He has got to be the best OC I've ever created. And hopefully you'll find out who he is soon.

**d: **Okay.

**Vegita43: **Well, I try.

**padfootjr23: **You'll have to tell me if it is.

**Madfoot Moony: **Yep! He's back!

**The Vampire Story Hunter: **And that's precisely why I couldn't resist.

**jeangab057: **The Italian kid is one of my secret.

**Amscray: **I've never seen that movie. And I'm a little bit confused at the minute about the rest of your review.

**Paladin3030: **Yes, I'm in England, but I think the SATs are different overhere to America. Probably just as annoying, but probably different. And you're right. She doesn't know her niece's name, but she shall find out. From Siri. And do you have to bring up yet more obstacles for me to clear?

**scholcomp25: **Thanks, and the above was it.

**amora: **I know, it is, isn't it?


	18. Chapter 18

**A/N: **Yes, it's me again. I'm sorry this took longer, but my time on the computer has been seriously cut down recently by my parents.

**Disclaimer: **I do not own Harry Potter, or any related characters, only Tanhisial and several others.

**Chapter 18**

_He was back in the same forest as one of the last dreams he had had. He could tell. Few things had changed from the last time he had found himself there in a dream, but there were a few changes from previously._

_There was more mist there than before, and there was less light than he could remember. Fewer trees too, and if anything, the silence from the last time had increased, though it hadn't seemed possible before, and much more oppressing._

_The silence now seemed near unbearable. Harry wished there was some noise in the very least to dispel it for a short amount of time, but there was not. There was no chirping of birds in the trees overhead, nor was there the sound of birds travelling. There was now sound of leaves rustling in the wind, of people nearby, or anything. There was nothing._

_He could feel himself moving forwards, he could see himself moving past the trees, just like before. As he went he could see there was a difference to the trees. It was a big difference. They were dieing._

_The last time Harry had appeared there the trees had appeared old, but none of them had been dieing, rotting or decaying, only a matter of days. A lot of them were now._

_Harry felt himself pick up speed, just like he had the last time he had been there, and before he knew it he was at the same clearing, the same glade as he had been in in his last dream visit, in front of the same person he had seen before._

_"Are you ready, Harry Potter?" she asked in the same voice as she had used before, repeating the question she had asked him._

_"I might be if I know what I was supposed to be ready for," he replied, scowling at her._

_She laughed at his response._

_"You will see soon enough," she said mysteriously to him._

_"Why won't you tell me what you mean?" he asked. He raised an eyebrow when she laughed once again. "Why won't you explain anything?"_

_"Mortal men always curious. Why do you wish to know answers to questions you have yet to ask, nor are ready to accept the answers to?"_

_"Because you haven't given me a chance to ask my questions yet, and I won't know I'm not ready to accept the answers to the questions unless I know the answers."_

_"You seem to be wise compared with many others of the human race. Ask your questions, and I will do the best I can to answer them."_

_Harry nodded, several questions springing to his mind at once. Unable to decide, he chose a random one that seemed of relative importance._

_"What's-what's with this place? Why's it so dark? Why are the trees dieing? And what's with this mist?"_

_The woman's eyes seemed to glaze over for a moment or two, as if she were deep in thought of lost in some daydream or fantasy before replying._

_"This wood... It is ancient. It is not part of your world, though it is connected with it, it is older than your world. It has been the home of my people ever since time itself began. _

_"The level of light here depends on the level of light in your world. As the people of the light diminish in yours and are replaced with those of the dark, so dims the light here, and vice versa. Should at any one point there be all light or all dark you world will destroyed."_

_She paused a moment, letting this information sink in._

_"That time is fast approaching. I can feel it._

_"The trees… The trees are dieing because the hope you have known to exist all of you life is dieing. Each tree represents a different person's hope, a different person who walks amongst the light. All of their hope is going, and one it is gone there will be no chance for you left."_

_"And the mist? What's that for?"_

_"The mist is power… the power of you world," she answered him after a moments pause. "The light and hope of your world are dimming, yet the power grows. Never has this occurred before."_

_There was the same silence as before for several minutes until the woman spoke again._

_"Do you still have questions? Or do you fear the answers to them to an extent that you dare not ask?" she asked, with a sad smile._

_"I want to know. I have more questions. Like, what are you? Who are you? And what the hell am I doing here?"_

_"I am Tanhisial," she said, sadness creeping into her voice. "I am the last of the high elves, with one exception. That is of the protector and messenger that remains in you world. I believe the person you refer to as your godfather has met him briefly. All other than him remain in your world are House. I linger on, and I will until the evil of your world, the one main evil, is defeated. I believe you know him as Voldemort._

_"As to what you are doing here, you are dreaming," she said, stating the obvious, making Harry realise his mistake._

_"Okay… why am I here?"_

_Tanhisial ignored his question, staring off into the space between two trees._

_"You have already lingered here long enough. I will call you back in the equivalent of 3 of your days and nights. But I must leave you with one more message before you wake up in your world: Do you believe in destiny?"_

_"Destiny?" Harry asked, but it was too late. He was leaving. His dream was over._

"Interri... così posto sconosciuto... perchè il mosto divide il mondo nelle zone separate? Che cosa è l'esigenza dei paesi?" asked the same person whom Sirius had met previously when he had been in Italy, only this time in the form Sirius had not seen instead of that of a child. _[Earth... such a strange place... why must they divide the world into separate areas? What is the need for countries?]_

Slowly he walked along a road, his face, height and full appearance changing back to the one most people had seen before, though very few _had _actually seen him. And if they had at the particular moment when he had finished transforming his appearance and had gazed upon his face then they would have a shock as to the expression on it, one which a child should never be able to muster.

Collapsing quietly to the ground, he sent out a magical signal so that the people he wanted to find he would find him first, and would, hopefully, take him to the place he was hoping for. He had managed to make it look like he had been attacked by Death Eaters, so it should work, he knew it would.

Sure enough, two members of the Order of the phoenix came along after only a couple of minutes, then, after debating for a few minutes on what they should do, they picked him up and took him to headquarters. The figure smirked. Humans could be so predictable.

"You tried to kill me!" yelled Sirius at Bella. After Harry had left the room they had put up a silencing charm and then the real fight had begun.

"And you never did when we were kids?!" Bella yelled back, just as loudly.

"Get over it! It was in the past!"

"And so was the Department of Mysteries!"

Sirius scowled at her. At much as he didn't want to admit it, she was right about that. Along with something she had said just after Harry had left. Carrying on an old family feud was pointless, since they were both on the same side now.

He felt the corners of his mouth twitch slightly as he caught sight of his reflection, along with that of his cousin.

Her face was red and blotchy from their fight, whilst his was the same, along with a split lip where she had punched him and he was soaked through from when she had thrown water at him. His hair was a mess, almost as much as hers, which, because it was longer, became much messier much easier.

"What's so funny?" Bella asked him, a scowl on her face.

"Have you seen our reflections?" he managed to gasp out eventually between laughs.

Bella's scowl deepened at that, and just as she was about to respond someone came in, waking up the portrait of Mrs Black so it wouldn't have been heard, even if Sirius hadn't left then in curiosity to find out who it was.

The sight that he saw was a little bit of a shock. Here was the same kid who had annoyed him quite a bit back in Italy, apparently wounded, being carried in by two members of the Order, barely conscious.

"L'OH, è coniglio brained la barra di cioccolato," _[Oh, it is rabbit brained chocolate bar]_ the kid said, before passing fully out.

**A/N: **Well, there you have it, another chapter out. I can't believe I've written 18 chapters now. My brain still thinks I'm on 13 chapters only. It's strange.

_Sooooo _many reviews! I'm trying my hardest not to cry at the amount! So happy!… Okay, maybe not, coz now I'm facing my responses. Oh dear.

**Nightwishsama:** It's okay! I couldn't think up a decent start for it at all. Talk to you on MSN later hopefully (where I'm determined to get another song outta you!).

**Lanfear1: **I know, I couldn't resist that one reaction from Sirius!

**Madfoot Moony: **Why is it everyone always tries to bribe me with songs?! Why?! Thanks anywayz.

**Allyanna: **Thanks!

**jeangab057: **Perhaps, perhaps.

**Paladin3030: **You have lots of ideas for plots in your brain don't you? And, again, I may have to use them.

**StryderDarkwynd: **Chris! Did you _have _to give me that many reviews?! 17! Bloody hell!

**Sword of Darkness: **I'm no good when it comes to writing violence! And I've never written a sex scene!

**Launigsiae: **Thanks!

**Amscray: **Thanks for clearing that up! 1) No, the kid isn't Voldemort and 2) I still haven't worked out when Wormtail did betray Voldemort. In answer to your question, probably not. I really don't like Ron at all.

**Cheery Wolf: **This soon enough?

**Hi Im Crazy: **No, afraid there wasn't, but there was this chapter! He will play an important role to an extent in the rest of this fic though.

**gaul1: **Good questions, I'll have to find out myself.

**INMH: **What?! Jedadiah is the middle name I nearly always give Sirius! And the line about blowing her ass back to Azkaban is from my friend who wrote the entire start of that chapter.

**Ossini: **I know he is. And I'm updating whenever I can.

**r: **Okay.

**Zaraky: **She saw your reviews, so she already knows. And she may try that sometime soon.

**The Vampire Story Hunter: **I will. You're scary at times.

**Potts: **Okay!

**Ryua Malfoy: **Well, there had to be at least one line that was totally Sirius!

**Happy Hyper Bunny Lover: **Thanks! A lot of people say they thought they wouldn't like the pairing at first.

**linky2: **Errr... huh?

**A. Person: **Thanks!

**PaPa SmUrF: **To be smacked around the head or to be woken by a nice cold shower! Lovely prize, wouldn't you agree?


	19. Chapter 19

**A/N: **If anyone thinks they can bribe me with songs, you can think again! It no longer works! All thanks to the wonders of file sharing!

**Disclaimer: **I do not own Harry Potter or any of the related characters or places, but I do own Tanhisial and the Italian kid that always annoys Sirius.

**Chapter 19**

"Dove state andando? Perchè state funzionando via? Ritornato! Non ho fatto nulla!" _[Where are you going? Why are you running away? Come back! I did not do anything!]_

"Kid! Stop following me!" Sirius yelled at the kid. He had been there a total of two days, one of which had been spent in bed, and now he was conscious again. And annoying Sirius.

"Che cosa è errato? Sono irritante voi?" _[What is wrong? I am irritating you?]_

Sirius growled in frustration. Why the hell did this kid insist on annoying him of all people?

"Il bambino, che cosa è il vostro nome?" _[Child, what is your name?]_ asked Bella. She had been watching the whole incident and had finally decided that Sirius deserved a break.

"Il mio nome? È Ehno." _[My name? It is Ehno]_

"Perchè siete irritanti il mio cugino? So è divertimento, ma la I don't pensa che chiunque lo abbia irritato mai così tanto." _[Why are you irritating my cousin? I know it is fun, but I don't think anyone has ever irritated him so much]_

"Huh?" said Sirius.

"Poiché è un idiot!" _[Because he is an idiot!] _The kid exclaimed, happily laughing.

"Bene, quello deve essere uno dei motivi migliori per irritarlo che mi sono sentito mai," _[Well, that has to be one of the best reasons for irritating him that I have ever heard] _she said, before switching back to English again and noticing her cousin's glare. "What?!"

"You've been able to speak to him all this time and you haven't done anything to stop him from being so annoying?!" he yelled at her, obviously mad. To anyone watching them it would have looked as if Sirius was about to explode.

"It was funny. Oh, and before I forget, the kid's name is Ehno, and he's one of the smartest people I've ever met," she said, smiling into Sirius's glare

"And why's that?" he asked suspiciously.

"Because he rightfully thinks you're an idiot," she responded cheerfully, smiling happily.

"I hate you," Sirius muttered, glaring at her.

* * *

_"Welcome back," said Tanhisial, welcoming Harry back to the wood. "It is time you answered my question. Do you believe in destiny?"_

_"What? Why should it matter?" Harry asked, scowling. Why should it matter at all about what he believed?_

_"Just answer me," the last true elf said, amusement creeping into her voice. "Do you believe in destiny? The inevitable divine path which life forms must follow? The predetermined course of a life?"_

_Harry's scowled deepened. Why the hell should he answer a question that obviously wasn't important? It made no sense, but then, he reminded himself, most things in the magical world didn't._

_"Kinda," he replied, after several minutes thought._

_"Kind of?" she asked him, looking at him in curiosity. "How so?"_

_"Err," he started off. "I don't know."_

_"What is it you believe or disbelieve about destiny?"_

_"Does it matter?"_

_"Yes, it does. I will ask you again. Do you believe in destiny?"_

_"… To an extent, I guess," he said, after a moment's pause. "I believe people have freewill, but there's gotta be something guiding them somehow." _

_She smiled at him slightly, similar to the one she had given him the first time he had come to the forest._

_"That is a wise thing to believe. I am glad the fates chose me to guide you in your future."_

_"Huh?"_

_"Time in your world is passing quickly, Harry Potter. It is time for you to go back."_

_The wood slowly faded from view, and the next thing he knew he was staring up into the face of Ron._

"What do _you _want?" he asked harshly.

"I… I…" Ron tried to respond, stammering.

"Spit it out!"

"I'm sorry!"

"Ron! I've told you before! I'm not interested! Now get out of my face!" Harry shoved passed him, ignoring the hurt look on his ex-best friends face and getting out of the room quickly.

* * *

Ehno chuckled slightly as he entered the Black family's library and transformed into his true form. This was too easy.

Silly humans, alphabetizing and categorizing everything in such a way any idiot could understand it. It just showed how idiotic they could be. Surely any of their enemies would find their way around without the slightest bit of trouble. Surely it would make more sense to have an illogical filing system, using the first word of the book, or some such thing? It would be harder to navigate, so no enemy would have access so easily to the information they wished to have.

He ran his finger along one shelf of book, his long finger become caked with dust form the amount of time this old house had obviously been neglected by it's owners, though now it seemed as if they were trying to reverse the effects that time had had over the effect, along with destroying any of the more dangerous artifacts that had been gathered in the house over the years, yet they had not yet reached this room.

He smirked, still thinking of the idiocy of mankind, unable to think of a truly good reason why they were the dominant species of the planet. Maybe everything else on the planet was just really, really dumb. But no matter, it only made it easier for him to complete his plan.

A cruel smile reached his lips and his eyes gleamed as he pulled down a thick leather bound book, about what most humans would consider A4 in size. The leather was stained a deep red, so dark that it could be mistaken for black, and the parchment was yellowing with age, and the ink was slightly faded.

Ehno's smirk left his face and was replaced with that of a scowl. Humans were murderers, that much was plain to see, but the amount of murder that was committed everyday was truly shocking.

Every human on the planet, with the possible exception of a rare few, had taken a life, in some cases millions, yet very few actually believed their actions as murder, very few actually realized what they had really done.

Take a child playing in a garden for example. Say the child found an Ants nest. The would, most probably, go get some water and pour it into the ants nest, effectively killing many of the ant, without realizing that it was killing. It was murder.

Next there are the people who kill ant, again for they are so small, along with other small animals and insect, as they walk along the street. This wasn't deliberate, but it was still the taking of another's life. It could be described as manslaughter.

Manslaughter. Humans were really ego-centric if you thought about it, and a lot of things they said gave the entirely wrong impression. Man_kind _is one such thing. Man being considered kind could be described as laughable. This is the same species that kill other species (which is perfectly natural to an extent in the animal kingdom, but not as much as has been done, for no species besides humans have really gotten others to the level of extinction) along with their own and, pretty much, destroying the world in the aid of 'development'. But that is another subject altogether.

Now let us go up a level from that innocence of a child playing in a garden and the person who inadvertently kills simply by walking to full grown humans who know that that they are killing, yet they manage to justify it. For example, there are butchers. They kill, or butcher, if you will, many, many animals in their life times. Their justification for this is that people need to eat, which could be considered fair enough, but to Ehno it was still killing, it was still murder.

Next up on the scale of killing are soldier and assassins. These people are paid to kill other humans, the soldiers often in efforts to keep or regain the peace, the assassins often to prevent it. It was still murder.

And finally there are the people that the human race regards as murderers, the people who kill their own kind without being paid to do so, but just out of anger, revenge, or maybe just in cold blood. These people can be described as the worst of the lot. They really do murder.

Throughout the animal kingdom, no matter what level you are at, from the smallest flea to the largest whale, you will not encounter any species that would kill their own, save for the humans. Surely this told you that humans are truly a bloodthirsty race, who desire to see death and pain more so than they realize consciously.

Ehno looked down at the book he was holding, with the leather and parchment that made it up. This was only part of the proof that men were murderers. Parchment was sheep skin, whilst leather is that of a cow's. It was murder.

He shook his head slightly. It was not the time to get emotional over the loss of the lives of millions and billions of animals. He had a job to do.

Shrinking the book ('_So You Wish to Learn the Forbidden Arts_ by _Russell Spindel_) and hiding it before changing back to his guise of an annoying ten year old boy, he left the library to see if he could use any of the forbidden arts.

**A/N: **YES! CHAPTER'S OUT! WOOOOOOOOHOOOOOOOOOOOO! Okay, you can tell I'm happy. Especially having a little rant half way through the chapter itself, but that just adds to the charm of it!

Okay, happy streak over. I have a question for anyone who's interested. I want to see if anyone can guess the truth about Ehno. It may not be totally obvious, but there are some clues I've placed in this and in previous chapters that may help. And yes, I'm totally bored, if you're wondering.

Not as many reviews for last chapter as there was before, but I'm not bothered.

**StryderDarkwynd: **There's only one way I can respond to such a review. Err... ew!

**Madfoot Moony: **NO ONE CAN BRIBE ME ANYMORE! MWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! FILE SHARING IS GREAT! I know how you feel about addictive fanfics. Especially a lot of the ones I'm reading at the minute (damn slow writers! Ad I resent the hypocrite remark I know it coming!). The dream forest thingy will have some importance at some point too. More of the Harry/Bella interaction soon, hopefully (if I remember to get rid of most other characters)

**Dark Miroku: **Thanks for both or you reviews! And thanks for the help! I think I'll really need it!

** Launigsiae: **Thanks!

**Zaraky: **No, you're not the only person who believes that. No one could be all good or all evil. To believe such a thing would be stupid. I'll try to make my chapters longer too (I do try, and it does work, nowadays my average chapter length is 1500, instead of what used to be just over 1000).

**Hi Im Crazy: **I would have thought that fact that Ehno (ITALIAN KID HAS A NAME NOW! REJOICE!) wasn't human would have been obvious from the chapter where Sirius came back to England. Thanks though. Glad you liked the forest and what it symbolizes too.

**Amscray: **But I'm not any good at writing fight or action scenes! And I HATE Ron! He's the only character that I hate so much that I would actually let it change what I write in a fic! All of the other characters, whether I like them or not, don't change a fic too much for me!

**jeangab057: **Okay! To London!

**FrostWing: **Like I told Zaraky, my chapters are longer than they used to be on average, but I will try and get them each up to 2000 words (this one's only about 400 off). And I don't know why if people like Bella they Hate Ron. Must be one of those things.

**A. Person:** Thanks! But what's wrong with weird pairings?! They're fun and out of the ordinary. The line I added in for Sirius, well, I had to do something that was so totally Sirius (so definitely not serious) and that just seemed to fit the bill. And my explanation about Sirius actually being there in this should be up sometime in the next few chapters.


	20. Chapter 20

**A/N: **Yep, me again. And I may finally get more Harry/Bella interaction in after I finally came to my senses when I received certain reviews (thanks Roxoan and Paladin3030!). They'll probably be some romance in this chapter.

**Disclaimer: **If I was to own Harry Potter I wouldn't be 14 years old.

**Chapter 20 **

"Clowns - Clowns are taking my rabbit… Watch out for… sumo wrestlers are coming… chocolate give… me gas… no emmies… big money… Dell's idea… Becky's fault, Becky did it…"

"Harry?"

"Beware… Beware… the mouse… You are… the weakest link… goodbye… squishy… bad squishy… Are ye… fantastical… or that… indeed… which ye… outwardly… show… The sea monkey… has my money…"

"Harry?!"

"Tummies are bad for you… no… banana split… foo… food for thought… clouds… clouds and piñatas drooping…"

"Harry?! Are you gonna wake up?!"

"Puppy… puppy doggies are… taking… over…over the rabbit duck… time… for… tea… the potions… master… ate the… cake…you have a bad haircut…"

"I'll take that as a no then."

"I didn't… do it… it's time for… no… Luke… I am your… father… sugar coated cardboard… save the holy… rabbit's… foot…"

"Okay, fine, this is your own fault!"

"Thou shall… be… smoten… fish are friends… not food… Alarm clocks screaming… Monsters calling… my name… Mice… tails… Pocahonta- hey! What was that for?!"

Harry sat straight up in bed, dripping wet, whilst Bella stood over him, trying to look innocent, though she was only managing to look more guilty, what with the bucket under her arm which had a couple of ice cold water dripping from it.

"Um… you wouldn't wake up," she said, giggling slightly at the outraged look on his face.

"You are so going - Ooof!"

Harry had been trying to get out of his cocoon of soaked bed sheets to - well, he wasn't sure what he had been trying to do, but it was probably something along the lines of avenging his lost sleep. Whatever his plan had been it had been unsuccessful.

Bella was laughing hard when she put the bucket down and went to help him up. She reached out an arm, but instead of allowing her to pull him up, he deliberately pulled her down on top of him.

"Never wake a Potter up with a shower," he warned her with a grin.

"Then how do you wake them then?" she asked him, smirking slightly.

"Think I'm gonna tell you? What did you want, anyway?"

Bella rolled her eyes and stood up, allowing Harry to stand up, which took him a while as he had to disentangle himself from the sheets.

"You need to get up now if you want to see Hermione off."

**A/N: **Yes, I know, short and terrible, but I seem to have come up against writers' block. Because of this I'm going to be taking a break from writing this and my other Harry/Bella fic for a while (for about a month or two) and concentrate on my newest one. That one's loads easier for me to write.

**Roxoan: **Yeah, I know. I'm trying to get more interaction between them. Hopefully I'll be able to get more in.

**Zaraky: **Um, yeah. I don't really know much about sharks.

**Launigsiae: **Thanks!

**INMH: **Is okay!

**Sophie: **Thank you!

**Shadow Beast1: **Why do people assume I have a plot?

**The Vampire Story Hunter: **It wasn't interesting before?!

**Paladin3030: **In the next couple of chapters, okay?

**jeangab057: **Thanks!

**Jehova: **Um, right, I'll remember that.

**Anora: **Sorry, I don't really know that much about animals, and I was kinda ranting in that last chapter about pretty much anything that came to mind.

**Hi Im Crazy: **I have no idea what's up with Ehno (I love the name I gave him!) so if it's obvious then it isn't obvious to me either.

**Amscray: **Um... they weren't flashbacks, that was Ehno annoying Sirius, which works out even better now I have Bella speaking Italian.

**SmacksKiller:** Ooops!

**A. Person: **::applauds:: Well done! You're right about the connection between Tanhisial and Ehno (God, I love the weird names I've given them!)! The little elves you mentioned are just house elves in my story, though in the canon they may be the only type of elves.

**rickW22: **Thank you! And as soon as I get over my writers' block!

**Ms. Bellum: **I know! I feel the same way! When I first read the fifth book I thought I would always hate Bella... now she's the coolest!

**sarl927: **When my writers' block is gone.


	21. Chapter 21

**A/N: **I know I said I wouldn't be updating for a month due to writer's block, but someone (ZARAKY!) managed to help me get over it, so I'm writing again, along with question why I had certain characters in this.

**Disclaimer: **Harry Potter is the property of JK Rowling. Not mine.

**Chapter 21**

_-----Flashback-----_

_Wormtail stared up, terrified, at his Master. Over the past few meetings that he had attended the Dark Lord had started asking him more and more questions, each riddled with hidden meanings that he could not pick up. But he did know it meant one thing. When the Master started asking you more and more questions it meant he suspected you of betrayal. And that was never good._

_And now, for the first time in the 16 years that he had been in the Dark Lord's service he truly started fearing for his life, far more than he had even when Sirius had been about to kill him. He had only one choice now._

_------End Flashback-----_

That was a few weeks ago, and now, as he floated along one lonesome country lane, dead as a doornail, he wondered why he had even joined up with the Dark Lord. The dark mark tattoo still remained on his arm, even in death. They had been right when they had said that once you took the mark you were branded for the rest of eternity. There was absolutely no way to remove it.

He was still not quite sure about the real reason he was dead. He knew he was supposed to have betrayed his master, but, to the best of his knowledge, he hadn't. Someone had been leaking valuable information about the Death Eaters, so that may have been what he was suspected of. It hadn't been him though, at least not deliberately.

Sighing, the ghost of Peter Pettigrew stopped at a random point. It was said that wizards and witches who were scared of death would become ghosts. Funnily enough, no one had ever suspected him of becoming one. It was shocking really. It was obvious that he feared death more than anything (besides his own friends' revenge) but everyone thought that as soon as he died they would get rid of him for good. It didn't work that way. It never would.

"…survival"

Harry suddenly snapped out of his thoughts rather abruptly when he realised that Sirius had been trying to teach him something, as Dumbledore had asked him to, but he had been staring off into space, trying to think what Hermione was doing at that exact moment. Probably reading _Hogwarts A History._

"Huh? What did you say?"

"I said," Sirius sighed. "That becoming an animagi could be the key to helping us to rid the world of Voldemort once and for all. It could also be the key to your very survival."

"I'm gonna be learnin' to be an animagi?"

Sirius raised an eyebrow.

"Harry, you are talking to Sirius Black, prankster and marauder extraordinaire. Do you honestly think I wouldn't teach this to you some day?"

"Good point..."

"Plus your father would probably run me through with his antlers if I didn't."

This earned a small smile from Harry, causing Sirius to act offended, as if he thought Harry was smiling at the image of him with antlers coming through his chest.

"That is not funny young man! Now if you don't want to - crap, I sounded just like my father then."

This time Harry burst out laughing. Trust Sirius to be able to make anyone laugh, no matter how down they felt.

"Okay, okay. I'll learn. How do I do this?"

**A/N: **Short chapter, I know, but I got over writer's block and I updated sooner than I expected to. Plus I may be able to update more often son _if _I manage to save up enough money for this laptop I want (it'd be cheap, and without an internet connection, but it'll at least enable me more time to spend writing fanfics than I do now). I'm only a little bit off at the minute!

I just got one thing to say to all of the people who reviewed: I'm stunned. So many for one chapter!

**1: **I don't write smut, violence... that could prove interesting.

**Madfoot Moony: **Thanks! And I can't help the length of my chapters. True, nowadays I aim for 2000 or more words, but it can be hard.

**Hi Im Crazy,** **Launigsiae,** **mellowyellow36: **I know!

**INMH: **You know you leave some of the strangest reviews?

**The Vampire Story Hunter: **Hey! I take offence to that!

**Amscray: **Lol! That scene sounds funny. And good point on Bella. I've already got to do something about the Longbottom's so I may focus it slightly around that.

**SmacksKiller: **Oh great, now I have to deal with an addicted reviewer. Brilliant!

**A. Person: **You pronounce it Tan-hiss-eye-al. And you're partly right about Ehno being an elf. There is more to him than that.

**Potts: **I keep trying to!

**A-Brighter-Dawn: **Thanks!

**Silver Scale Serpent: **Lol, blame both sets of babbling on watching Finding Nemo to many times early in the morning… or maybe just too many times.

**AnthonyR: **You got to do Romeo and Juliet for the SATs no fair! And I was waiting a month to update because of writer's block, which is gone now.

**Roseaxis: **Yeah, I know, that was a minor mistake I made when was rambling.

**Silverdragsurfer: **Well here it is!

**Dragon Orb: **I know that now!


	22. Chapter 22

**A/N: **Oh my! I just noticed I'm so close to 300 reviews! Only about twenty something off! Cool!

Oh, and when I wrote part of this I was listening to one of Evanescence's songs (Imaginary) and I got some sudden inspiration for some stuff.

**Disclaimer: **I do not own Harry Potter, so go and bug someone else about that.

**Chapter 22**

Harry groaned as he entered the kitchen in Grimmauld Place, grimacing as he sat down. Who knew that animagi training could be so tiring?

 Happened to you?" asked the amused voice of Bella from the doorway.

"Sirius," Harry said simply, resting his head against the table. "For a marauder, he's definitely taking his chance to teach me how to become an animagus too serious."

Bella chuckled slightly, before sitting down opposite him.

"So how far have you got? He's been teaching you for two months so far."

"Apparently," Harry said with feigned joy. "Tonight I get to find out what my animagi form is!"

"Why tonight of all nights?" she asked him curiously.

"I don't know. When I asked him he said something about the moon."

_"Ah, Harry Potter, good of you to finally join me again."_

_"Huh?" Harry muttered unintelligently, before opening his eyes and finding himself face to face with Tanhisial. "Oh, err, hi."_

_She chuckled amusedly for a moment, her face shining slightly, before some seriousness set into her face._

_"It has been over a month since I last spoke to you, Harry Potter."_

_Neither said anything for a moment, and Harry sifted slightly, looking around. It was much darker in their than it had been before, parts being pitch black, though there were a couple of spot of blinding white light. There were also far fewer trees than before, and far more mist._

_"You are wondering why you are here, are you not?" she asked, continuing before waiting for an answer. "You have heard the prophecy made by the witch seer Sybil Trelawney, 15 of your earth's years ago. I can see it in your eyes. In the prophecy it stated that you would have a power the Dark Lord knew not. Unfortunately, with just the help of the wizards and witches of earth, you will not be able to realise this power."_

_Tanhisial stared off into space, almost mournfully, for a few minutes, obviously lost in thought. Finally she blinked and snapped out of it._

_"I apologise," she said, shaking her head. "Some of the time my mind wanders without my realising."_

_"Er, right," Harry said quickly. "But you still haven't told me why I'm here. You just said I can't learn what the power that's in the prophecy is, let alone use it."_

_"Ah, but I said no such thing. I said that you could not learn about it in your world. That is why you are here. Here you will be able to learn to control it."_

_"But… but what is it?"_

_"You will find out in time, little human," she chuckled quietly. "But you must go back now."_

Harry woke with a slight shock and sat up quickly, his eyes darting around him for some unknown danger. Sure enough, soon a figure threw a bucket of water at his bed, which he just managed to avoid by scrambling out of the bed at the last second.

"You're getting predictable Sirius," Harry laughed at his godfather who was smiling at him.

"Well, you're learning to be more alert. It's harder to surprise you now."

Harry smiled, before yawning and looking briefly out of the windows, suddenly scowling.

"Sirius! It's still dark out!"

"Yeah, well, you're awake now," he said, sifting slightly. "So get up! There's only a couple of hours before the moon sets!"

Harry growled and rolled his eyes as Sirius left the room, but follow, albeit somewhat reluctantly.

"Where are we going anyway?" Harry asked, somewhat grumpily.

"We're going here!" Sirius said brightly, stopping and going through what appeared to Harry as a random room. "We're gonna find out your animal form is tonight!"

Harry yawned slightly, still tired. "So I'll be able to transform?"

"Only if we hurry!"

Harry sighed, and stepped into the room, surveying it briefly. It was large, and looked as if the walls and ceiling were painted with a scene from another world. The ceiling was violet in colour and painted in such a way it looked like sky, with pale pink clouds painted on it and a few birds (none of which he recognised) flying across it. The walls and floors were painted to look like open fields, charmed so that the grass that appeared to be growing there moved and swayed in the breeze. In one direction there were some woods far off in the distance, and a lake in another. Altogether it looked beautiful.

But it wasn't how the room looked that immediately caught his attention. It was a mural on the far walls of someone whom Harry instantly recognised. She looked exactly the same.

"Tanhisial," he murmured, before passing out.

Harry groaned as his opened his eyes, quickly shutting them again against the blinding light. Slowly he opened them again and sat up. He was in his room, alone, and could hear voices downstairs, all obviously arguing.

"SIRIUS! DOD YOU EVEN THINK OF WHAT MIGHT HAPPEN IF YOU TOOK HIM IN THERE?!"

That was Bella. He'd recognise that yell anywhere.

"OF COURSE THE UNGRATEFUL BRAT DIDN'T THINK! HE NEVER DOES! AND LOOK WHAT THAT GOT HIM! DISOWNED AND TWELVE YEARS IN AZKABAN!

That was Mrs Black's portrait getting in on the argument.

"YES! I THOUGHT ABOUT WHAT MIGHT HAPPEN! DO YOU HONESTLY THINK THAT I WOULD DELIBERATELY DO SOMETHING THAT WOULD ENDAGER MY OWN GODSON'S LIFE?! I MAY DO SOME SERIOUSLY DANGEROUS THINGS THAT COULD GET MYSELF KILLED, BUT DO YOU REALLY THINK I WOULD INVOLVE HARRY IN ANYHTING LIKE THAT?! HE'S ALL THAT'S LEFT OF ONE OF MY BEST FRENDS!"

That was Sirius, and he sounded really distraught over what had happened. 'Whatever that was' Harry thought to himself.

"WELL, PROBABLY NONE OF THIS WOULD HAVE HAPPENED IF YOU HAD JUST JOINED THE DARK LORD IN THE FIRST PLACE!"

That was Mrs Black, and whatever tirade she had been planning was quickly cut short by a sheik and the sound of a glass breaking against a wall. Probably Sirius.

"DO NOT EVEN _THINK _OF GOING THERE! JOINING VOLDEMORT - STOP FLINCHING WOMAN! YOU'RE DEAD AND JUST A DAMN PORTRAIT! HE CAN'T HURT YOU! JOINING VOLDEMORT HAS DONE NO ONE IN THIS FAMILY A SCRAP OF GOOD! LOOK AT WHAT HAPPENED TO REGULUS! DEATH FOR FINALLY REALISING THE TRUTH! THAT VOLDEMORT WAS AND IS A MONSTER! IT GOT MYSELF, MY HUSBAND AND HIS BROTHER THROWN IN AZKABAN, BOTH OF WHOM ARE NOW DEAD! AND DO YOU KNOW WHY?! THEY WERE SCREAMING TOO LOUDLY WHEN UNDER THE RUCIATUS FOR VOLDEMORT'S TASTES! YES! THAT'S RIGHT! THEY WERE KILLED FOR SCREAMING TOO LOUDLY WHEN THEY WERE BEING TORTURED! SO DON'T EVEN _THINK_ OF GOING THERE!"

That was Bella, meaning that instead of Sirius, it must have been her that threw the glass. Voldemort and Death Eaters must have been a sore subject for her to have gone off on a tirade.

Harry heard Bella storm off, and lay back down. He might as well try and catch up on the sleep he missed that morning.

Bella stormed off from the argument, shaking with fury and fists clenched, though she couldn't stop a slight smirk of triumph sneaking it's way onto her face when he thought about the fact she had gotten to her aunt's portrait. The image in the woman's painting had pales slightly when she had brought up Regulus, so obviously she actually cared for one of her sons.

Still angry beyond belief, Bella walked into the nearest room, slamming the room shut with a resounding bang, before ramming her fist into one of the room. Her rage leaving her for a moment as pain flooded her arm for a moment and then left, anger taking it's place again, though not quite to the same extent as before.

How could that old bat even consider saying such a thing?! She knew that it would have all happened, regardless of whether Sirius had chosen to join Voldemort or not. She knew that it would have made absolutely no difference, apart from the fact Sirius' imprisonment would have happened for something that he was responsible for, rather than nothing. She even knew abut the prophecy. But the spiteful old cow just had to say it. Just to get at Sirius. She hadn't even considered the fact it may have affect her as well. She just had to say it.

Bella jumped slightly as she felt someone put their hand on her shoulder and turned quickly, only to see that it was Sirius, with, for once, a serious expression on his face.

"Why did you go off at her like that?" he asked her simply, his eyes boring into hers. "Normally it's just me that does."

"She had it coming," Bella scowled. "And she really should not have brought up Voldemort."

"Why?" Sirius asked suddenly, slightly taken aback. "Why did you leave Voldemort? You never did explain that to me."

"I… uh…" she started, totally speechless for a moment, causing Sirius the grin at her, though he quickly sighed his expression much more sombre.

"Bellatrix, do you remember when we were kids? Someone pranked Mother, and she blamed me? This was before any of us started Hogwarts, before you ask."

"Yeah…" Bella said, scowling. "What about it?"

"You, Reg, Narcissa and Adromeda all stuck up for me, telling her that I didn't do it. What happened to us?"

"We grew up, we grew apart," she said, scowling even more and getting up. At some point they had sat down, though she wasn't quite sure when. "Just tell me one thing. Why did you take Harry into that room?"

Sirius sighed. He had really been hoping not to have to get into that.

"Because…" he said slowly. "It's the only room in this entire house that's big enough for the first animagi transformation that anyone can have. No one can ever tell what there form will be until their first transformation."

There was a brief silence between the two of them, neither knowing what to say, but it was broken quickly enough.

"Do you know what his animagi form is then?" Bella asked Sirius, barely audible.

"Yeah," Sirius said, equally quietly. "I do. It's a…"

**A/N: **Yes, I'm evil, leaving you with a cliffy like that but I couldn't resist. This chapter's already over 1700 words long, so gimme a break. I do know what his animagi form will be though, for those that are curious, but I'm not telling. You'll have to find out next chapter.

For those that don't already know about this, I now have an order for updating my fics. After I update this I will update the AU version of it, followed by my fic 'Dad?' and then come back to this. It's kinda like a cycle.

**Hi Im Crazy: **Thanks!

**Potts: **This is longer, isn't it?

**The Vampire Story Hunter: **::growls:: Listen here bub. This is my fic, and if you're just going to call my work a piece of shit I suggest you stop reading it, because I won't stand for it. If you have anything bad to say about it then you should try to leave a constructive review that could help, and not just badmouth it, _so screw you!_

**mellowyellow36: **Lol, good guesses, but neither are right, I'm afraid.

**Amscray: **Lol! But, according to the fifth HP book, I'm fairly sure that people only become ghosts if they're scared of death. And good point about all of the people you mentioned. I honestly forgot about them.

**Topsta: **Great! Just great! A bloodthirsty reviewer! Wonderful!

**SiLvErFaTeD: **LOL!

**Gina: **Thanks! And Lol! I take it you think this is unique?

**INMH: **Lol! Okay!

**Ryua Malfoy: **Lol! Thanks! But Siri had to come back!

**FallenAngel12: **Lol, okay, I'll try for more intensity and more descriptions (I can never mange them too well though).

**Irina Derevko: **Nope, he won't be a stag. He'll be something that I don't think I've ever seen in a fanfic before. And everything in this that's supernatural (that I put in and isn't part of the canon) will be explained. I pretty much have explanations sorted.

**panuru4u: **It's entertaining? That's good to know.

**jeangab057: **Ah, that's okay. Just try not to forget too often. I like reviews!

**A. Person: **Lol, next chapter should hopefully have more explanation, but if you get any ideas about who he is before then I want to hear them. I want to know if it's possible to guess who he is.

**Krissy Riddle: **Lol, thanks!

**Draco-FutureBF: **I swear the romance will really begin in only a couple of chapters! I mean it!


	23. Chapter 23

**A/N: **::covers head from mass of sharp objects being thrown and runs for cover from angry readers:: I'm sorry! Just don't kill me before your read the chapter!

But on a brighter note, I'm typing this up on my own, brand new (ish) computer, so update should hopefully be more frequent now.

**Disclaimer: **I do not own Harry Potter and have never claimed to.

**Chapter 23**

"A snidget?" Harry asked sceptically as he looked up from his bed at Sirius. "You sure? I thought they were nearly extinct anyway."

"They may be," said Sirius, looking as if he knew everything on the subject. "But just because they're near extinction doesn't mean that you can't have one for your animagi form."

"Oh."

A few minutes of silence passed, neither sure of what to say, until Sirius smiled slightly and turned to leave, unable to stand the awkward silence that had occurred a moment longer.

"Um, Sirius?" Harry said, just as his godfather got to the door, causing the older man to turn. "What actually happened?"

Sirius sighed and came back into the room. He sat down, cross-legged, on an old, dusty, backless, black armchair and leaned his head against the wall which was just behind him, the old wallpaper crackling quietly under the sudden and unexpected weight. He closed his eyes a moment, before opening them and staring directly at his godson with a gaze so intense that Harry had only ever seen on one occasion before: two and a half years prior in the Shrieking Shack when Sirius had been trying to kill Wormtail.

"Do you know," Sirius started, still gazing unblinkingly at Harry. "The story behind that room I took you in earlier?"

Harry shook his head, making Sirius sigh, before he stared explaining the whole story behind it.

Bella sighed as she sat down, her back sliding down against a walls next to the door and she stared across at the mural on the other side, the only thing painted in there that wasn't moving, which gave it a much greater effect. This room could cause so much trouble, but was very important to history, and was about the only room in the house that was surrounded by light magic.

There was a history to the room that many people had forgotten over time, thinking that the magical history of the world was just goblin wars thanks to the history lessons that they had at school. But there was more to history than that, and the Black family had always made sure their children had known it. The room itself was part of one of her favourite sections of history that most people either forgot about or just didn't know. She could remember the story easily...

_Long ago, at the dawn of our world, elves left their own world and settled in ours. The elves of then and the elves of now are very different. Back then the elves were not the humble house elves of today. Back then the elves were not the servants of man. Back then elves were different physically, magically and mentally._

_Most of the elves were near immortal, as is normal for their kind, though only one was considered fully so. She was a Goddess among men and a Queen among her own people. Her name was Tanhisial._

_The elves spent several hundred years on Earth, all of which was in peace, and during which they helped and advised mankind in building their civilisation, and on their laws and morals, helping them in ways many people cannot imagine, suggesting and guiding towards ideas from their own culture to begin with, all of which could be changed at a later date by man should they wish it so._

_But then, after approximately 500 years on Earth a terrible deed was performed by man, one which the elves saw as unforgivable. An elf was killed, unprovoked as all elves were peaceful unless forced into war. This forced the elves to come to a realisation: their kind and ways of life would be destroyed forever , and they themselves would come under the control of the humans, and so Tanhisial made a decision that would affect all. She decided that the elves needed to leave the human world for good._

_Many of the humans pleaded with the elves to stay, that it wouldn't happen again, that it was a one off, and so on and so forth, but it was to no avail. They could not sway the decision with most of the elves._

_The elves parted ways with humans and the Earth then, but Tanhisial gave them one last parting message:_

_'Do not say we are out of touch with this rampant chaos - your reality. We know well what lies beyond our peaceful refuge, the nightmare we found our own world to escape.'_

_There were a few elves that stayed behind, of course, swayed by man's arguments that nothing of the sort of crime that had been performed would happen again. The descendants of these elves are now no more than the common day house elf, proving that the rest of the elves had been correct to leave when they had._

_Whatever happened to Tanhisial and the rest of the elves that chose to leave is widely unknown, though there are many speculations. Some say that they are all dead, some say that they are a dying race. Some say that they are alive and well, currently thriving in whatever world they went to after leaving our own. Others say that they are actually living amongst us, and that they never left, and others still say that Tanhisial and the others did leave, but, after many years, started to worry about the race of man, and so they sent back one elf to watch over them all in the guise of a human child in order to help protect to human world._

Yes, Bella loved that story, and the room she was in was supposed to depict what was seen through the portal to whatever land that the elves had gone to when they had left Earth by whoever was there at the time. Who had actually painted it, no one was too certain, but whoever had done, they had done a great job, and had probably added the wards surrounding the room as well.

The wards around the room, according to many, many tests that bad been done on them over the years, were mainly to keep the room safe, ensuring that no one who meant to do any harm to the one last reminder of the true elves could enter. But there was one ward, one single ward that was different from the others. This ward had been designed to identify the Prophesied One' upon their entry to the room. Whoever the Prophesied One was had remained a mystery up until earlier that day, but now she supposed it made sense. After all, Harry had been mentioned in the prophecy about Voldemort, but why no one had thought of it before was beyond her. Or, perhaps, they had, just not mentioned it for fear of ridicule.

Hermione stared out of a window at the top of Gryffindor tower, sitting with her back against the wall. Her homework lay done on the table, most of it she had only just managed to do to each of her Professors' requirements.

It was raining outside, as was normal for the time of year, and the sky was black and purple from the clouds. Somewhere in the distance lightning flashed, and she counted. One... two... three... four... and there was the thunder. Ever since she had been a little girl she had always counted the time between the lightning and the thunder, just mainly out of curiosity after hearing that each second you counted represented one mile further away from where you were to where the lightning had struck. According to that equation the lighting had hit only four miles away, most probably at the furthest side of Hogsmeade, or possibly somewhere up in the mountains.

"Hermione?" a timid voice asked from behind her. "Are you going to stay there all night?"

Hermione turned, a scowled fixed on her face as she glared at the person who had disturbed her; Ron. He instantly backed away as he saw the look on her featured, knowing that she was not to be messed with at that particular moment, and it would be best to not talk to her.

She turned back to the window and resumed staring, thinking back to what she would have been doing at about that time just one year ago. Probably either studying for the OWLs or doing homework. But now both studying and homework seemed rather pointless, along with grades, after all, there were more important things in life, like freedom for instance.

She knew what had brought about the change in her, from bookworm to then, and that was the events of the summer. Harry had lost his freedom, along with practically any chance of regaining it at the same time, and so it had help place things in perspective for her. Knowledge didn't seem as important anymore, it just... didn't.

Ehno giggled as he replaced_ 'So You Want To Learn The Forbidden Arts' _back on the shelf in the Black Family library. It had not given much information, but he had gained some knowledge from it that he could use, and every little bit counted.

Again he ran his hand over a shelf of the ancient books, searching for the right one, though he wasn't quite sure which it was. He knew he would know when he came to it, and so he did. He felt something, some magic in his hand when he reached one of the books which shot up his arm until he pulled out the book..

It was relatively thin compared with the rest, and appeared to be made of muggle paper, a welcome change from all of the parchment. The covers were made of a blue cardboard and all over it were drawn pentagram, stars, spirals, heartagrams and spider's webs, all drawn with great care in black or red, with the words _'The Diary Journal of Sirius Black'_ written in faded gold letters on one side. Ehno smiled, this could be what he wanted, what he needed to complete his task, but only time would tell.

He shrank the book, and hid it before leaving the library, shutting the door behind him.

_He was there again, in the forest, and, again, there was more mist, less light, and more dead trees than the last time he had been there. He looked up and saw Tanhisial._

_"Welcome, Harry Potter," she greeted him, a smile on her face, which quickly faltered. "I see that you now know of the past involvement between my people and your own."_

_Harry swallowed, and nodded his head, waiting for her to continue, but she never did. Finally Harry decided to speak._

_"Um, can you tell me why I keep coming here?"_

_She stared at him when he asked her the question, making him feel as if he had offended her in some way, though he quickly realised he hadn't when a smile graced her features._

_"You are coming here to learn more of your destiny," she said simply, looking around at the trees, one of the leaves of which fell. "Though it is your choice to come in the first place."_

_"You sure?" Harry asked, his brow furrowed in his confusion. "Because I don't exactly remember thinking about coming here."_

_"Maybe not," she laughed at him. "But your subconscious did."_

_"Could you explain a little bit more?" he asked her as politely as he could manage, feeling his infamously short temper starting to surface. Tanhisial chuckled quietly to herself._

_"I had almost forgotten how impatient man can be. But, if you want to know, I will not deny you. Your subconscious knew about this place all of your life, from the moment you were born. You come here of your own free will., the first time you come, and anytime you come whilst you are asleep, when your subconscious mind is at its strongest. However, should you decide to come whilst you are awake, you can do so, simply by thinking of this place. I would not advise this though," she smiled at him. "This would be, essentially, like apparition in your world, as your body would accompany your mind on the trip."_

_Harry nodded, his mind barely accepting all of the new information he had acquired. Then an idea struck him._

_"If I was to come when I was awake..." he started, trailing off when he saw Tanhisial had a good idea of what he was thinking._

_"No, if you were to come when you were awake then you would not necessarily end up back in the same place as to where you had left, but, rather, where you most wished to end up."_

_A mischievous glint appeared in Harry's eye as he thought about the possibilities for this power. They were nearly endless. It would certainly come in useful._

**A/N: **OMG! Do you have any idea of how long that chapter was?! Over 2000 words! It was so easy to write as well! Woohoo! Maybe not being distracted by the internet when I'm writing is a good thing, especially since I wrote almost all of this in one sitting. ::hugs computer:: I knew I should have gotten one ages ago!

**Mirai Diavolo: **Thanks! Here's the update!

**Dark Miroku: **Sorry, none of them. Besides, I had already decided on what his animagi form would be.

**Saetan: **Nope, actually, it's tiny. I said in the last chapter that you never could tell how large your form will be, so that meant it could be any size.

**Tradiferis: **I have a spellchecker! And I use it too! And I'm resolving that next chapter.

**panuru4u: **No, she was mouthing off at her aunt. But I get the idea. And thanks.

**Sonowiknow: **::shrugs:: Oh well.

**padfootjr23: **I hope this sated some of your curiosity.

**Ryua Malfoy: **As if anyone could get me to write that!

**SiLvErFaTeD: **Lol!

**Amscray: **Hmmm, good point about Sirius. And I do know my tudor history, you know. I love that era!

**Hell's Reaper: **Thanks!

**Rock and Sarcasm: **This soon enough?

**G: **Okay!

**The Vampire Story Hunter: **Nope, sorry, not a fox demon. And they don't show YuYu Hakusho here, so I wouldn't know.

**Krissy Riddle: **Yes, I did! And it got me some death threats!

**Zaraky: **Thanks!

**Lek Nufrac: **It was easy enough. I just stopped typing.

**mellowyellow36: **Again, no, not any sort of snake. And I know about the AU one.

**INMH: **Here you go!

**Susan: **Well, Harry's power's mentioned at the end.

**A. Person: **Lol! This chapter has some majoy hints in it.

**sarl927: **No, not stupid, well planned and strategically placed.

**Topsta: **Um, I'm not sure about Bella. I'd have to think about it, though I don't think I will have her as one. The facts just wouldn't add up.

**Bardiel-Sachiel: **Well, if that's your attitude I'm not sure I should update at all.

**TimGold: **No, you didn't miss it, and no I didn't forget. I just have trouble writing romance. Hopefully I will writesome in the next chapter (I have a whole scene planned out in my head). And has that been officially announced? If it has I must have missed it.

**JulyFlame: **A snidget, and thanks!

**Be0t: **Yeah, I know. Description's where I always go wrong.

**NatalieJ: **Lol! Thanks! But please! Don't remind me about my GCSEs! I'm trying my hardest to forget!

**NateP: **Now isn't that an interesting question. I could base a whole chapter on that.

**Klerenallan Serpiente de Plata: **Thanks for telling me about that! I really needed to read a fic like it.

**Dackasjack: **I can and I did!

**Noname: **I know that now!

**Potts: **To get death threats over the it.

Okay, now there's just one thing I've gotta say to you lot: 34 reviews! OMG! I'm in shock! Maybe I should do evil cliffies more often…


	24. Chapter 24

**A/N: **OMG! It's been so long since I updated! I can't believe it! Okay, so just over a week, but it still seems like ages! But I do have an excuse! My parents decided to take me over ninety miles away from home with them (family holidays suck) and I didn't have access to a comp to write anything. That's the last holiday I take with them!

Oh, and I keep forgetting to do this. I need to thank a couple of people, namely StryderDarkwynd and Zaraky. They've both helped me out with this, only I kept forgetting to give them credit for the ideas they gave me.

**Disclaimer: **I don't own Harry Potter and I would have I had made that perfectly clear now!

**Chapter 24**

Harry moaned and sat up, clutching his head in his agony. He had one hell of a hangover, and he could barely remember what had happened the previous night.

Frowning he thought back to the night before, straining as hard as he could to remember, and slowly it came back to him. Everyone had been at Grimmauld Place for Christmas, and he'd managed to avoid any fight with Ron all of the day, then... He couldn't remember much, only that he had had a _lot_ of butterbeer, and a bit of firewhiskey as well, getting thoroughly pissed, and then... something had happened, he was sure of it. But what was-

Harry looked down at the sudden movement on the bed beside him and saw that Bella had stirred. Then it hit him. He and Bella had gotten together in their drunken states and then... it was a blank, though he could have a pretty good guess on what had happened considering how they had ended up, and how friendly they had been acting in their drunkenness.

Harry got up quickly, not wanting to still be in bed when Bella woke up, just in case she had a better memory of what had taken place than he had, and wasn't too pleased about it, and walked down to the kitchen.

He sighed, realising that there wasn't much for him to collect his thoughts whilst he was insides. He grabbed a piece of parchment quickly, and scribbled a note (_'Gone flying, be back later'_) before standing on the window ledge nearby and jumping out, changing in mid-fall, knowing full well how stupid and dangerous it must look to anyone who just happened to be watching at that point. He didn't care though. It always felt best, and not to mention easier, to transform in midair. He didn't know why, though he supposed it could have been from the adrenalin rush of the fall, but it helped regardless.

Harry trilled happily as he hovered outside Grimmauld Place, his wings moving at a much faster speed than any other bird. He darted about a bit, still not travelling far, then he spotted one a window opening from number ten, and he flew off, not wanting anyone, least of all a muggle, to see his golden feathers and bright red eyes.

__

_1st August, 1969_

_i__ can't believe this. My parents are forcing me to stay here for the entire summer! No, i mean _physicall**y**_ forcing me._ **I HATE THEM!**_ They've threatened to do God-Only-Knows to me if i don't stay until i get back to Hogwarts. i can't believe this! i always knew they were pricks and bastards, but this is going a bit far!_

_Regulas has been a right pain, constantly following me around. Bet me parents put him up to it. Probably want to make sure they catch me sneaking out to Moony, Wormtail or Prongs'. As if i'd get the chance._

_Kreachur's__ following me around quite a bit too, when he's cleaning and cooking and stuff, though my parents have forbidden him from cleaning my room. Which is another reason why i hate my parents. They say that if i can't keep my room clean by myself then it won't be cleaned. OK, so i can live in my room, even if it_ is_ a total pigsty, but it's the principal of the thing!_

_Me cousins are here, along with my aunt and uncle. Both Bellatrix and Narcissa are being complete and utter brat, like they always have since we started Hogwarts. i swear, sometimes they can be even more annoying than my brat of a brother! i onestly find it imposible to believe that Bellatrix the same age as me, and Narcissa's only a few months younger! If anything, i'd say they were both five! Andromeda's not so bad, even if she is two years younger than Narcissa. least she acts her age._

_On a brighter note, i've narrowed down my possibilities of things i could do to get disowned down to six. Here they are:_

_1. Blow up the house (drastic, but probably worth it, even though i would probably get expelled)_

_2. Get expelled (not favourable, cause i wouldn't be able to do magic, but if it meant i wold be part of this family anymore then bring it on!)_

_3. Marry a muggle or muggleborn (would work like a charm, but it's have to be for something real to stop me from dating)_

_4. Get several members of the family arrested (sounds fun!)_

_5. Destroy most of the family heirlooms (which i'm determined to do at some point anyway)_

_6. Run away from home to either Moony, Wormtail or Prongs' (not totaly foolproof)_

_So they're my current options. Not many, but that's a good thing. Means it'll be easier to decide. i will get disowned though. i'm sure of it._

Ehno chuckled lightly as he read an entry in an empty room in twelve Grimmauld Place, though not because it was amusing, but rather because it was so damn obvious. It held what he had been searching for ever since he had arrived in England, and it seemed so obvious. So damn obvious.

Bella turned over in her sleep, reaching her hand over to the opposite side of the bed, only to find it empty. _'It wasn't empty before' _her subconscious told her, waking her a moment later, her head giving her immense pain from the handover she seemed to have acquired from the vast amounts of alcohol she had had the previous night. There was a lesson to be learnt from it, she was sure, but her hangover seemed to be inhibiting her ability to think straight and focus on one thing for too long without giving her a burst of pain.

"Fu-" she began to groan, but was cut off by a pounding at the door which only added to the pounding that was going on inside her own head. "What do you want?" she yelled to who ever it was, not feeling in the least bit sociable.

"Have you seen Harry?" Sirius' voice came through the door, laced with worry.

"No," she said bluntly, trying to get rid of her cousin as quickly as possible while she tried to find the hangover cure that she knew should have been beside her bed. "Why?"

"He's not anywhere in the house," Sirius' voice came again as her hand touched a piece of parchment.

"Oh," she called through the door as she read the note. "He's okay! I just found a note from him, he's gone flying!"

"Okay," she heard Sirius say, and his footsteps retreated down the hall. Then they stopped for a couple of seconds, before staring again, this time faster, as if he was running, and getting louder as he approached then burst in the room, anger aparent in his eyes. "Why did Harry leave a note in here?"

"I don't kn-" she said before it all came rushing back to her. The Christmas cheer, Harry, alcohol and lots of it, Harry, a vodka, firewhiskey and butterbeer combination, coming on to Harry, more alcohol, some things that she really should have done with someone less than half her age and her cousin's godson, and so much more. Then she saw Sirius' face, and knew immediately that he had guessed what had happened by her face. "Oh shit."

**A/N: **Why do I get the idea that this is a short chapter? Besides the fact that it is of course? Oh, and the spelling and grammar mistakes in the diary bit are deliberate, before anyone asks. I am not deliberately portraying Sirius as stupid, nor is it a mistake, but I know for a fact that when writing things down on paper, possibly at speed, you can quite easily mis-spell words, or miss them out entirely, and usually, grammar can be totally wrong. Okay, that's that bit out of the way, now onto the review responses.

**Be0t: **Thanks! I don't think I have either, but, if you think about it, a snidget suits Harry quite a bit.

**TimGold: **Oh, so that's why loads of people have put those names as Ron and Sirius' middle names. I suppose it makes sense.

**A. Person: **Lol! A snidget is a small bird (suits Harry, wouldn't you say?) with red eyes and golden feathers (do I really have to point out that they're _Gryffindor_ colours?) which can fly with amazing speed and agility (another link to Harry) that was hunted to near extinction thanks to the sport of Quidditch. And here's the cookie for the Evanescence lyrics! ::throws cookies::

**The Vampire Story Hunter: **Meh.

**Ryua Malfoy: **Lol, okay, less cliffies (though I have virtually none anyway). And for a brief description of a snidget look at A. Person's review response.

**SiriusRulz14: **I don't think anyone but me was thinking snidget when they thought what Harry might turn into.

**Lek Nufrac: **Lol! Hypocrite! Look at A. Person's review response if you really want to know.

**NateP: **Okay, and yes, he is.

**Amscray: **No, a snidget is not a snail midget. It's a bird. And yep. I've spotted the similarities between HP and LotR too, lots of people have. In fact, I got my description of Tanhisial from it. ::giggles:: I don't know why, but every time I here the whole 'arrow in the eye' story it makes me laugh (possibly due to a comic strip picture I once saw about it... 'Bullseye!'). I definitely know about Lady Jane Grey though. I spend way too much time reading up on history. AND HERMIONE WILL NOT SIDE WITH THAT PRICK! Sorry, I just really hate Ron.

**Shadowface: **Okies!

**Ossini: ::sticks** tongue out:: Make me!

**Krissy Riddle: **Thanks! And yes, it was. I 'borrowed' it.

**Topsta: **I will get more and more in from now on, especially because of this chapter.

**Mark Turnlach: **And another.

**NatalieJ: **Year 11 sounds horrible. But that could be because my brother exaggerated it last year. Yeah, long chapters usually do take ages to get out… so I settle for short!

**Potts: **But it got me more reviews than normal!

**Sharap'n Princess: **Lol! Hey! The sharp stick thing gives me an idea for a fic about the sole way to defeat Voldemort!

**Scary-Girly: **If I'm a pervert you should start reading slash. It can truly change you mind about what is perverted and what isn't. Though there's an extremely large possibility you aren't reading this, because you only review the first chapter, so I could call you all sorts of names and you wouldn't know, now would you?


	25. Chapter 25

**A/N: **Sorry about the delay between the chapters (though, to tell the truth, I'm not too sure it was a delay, but whatever). I actually re-wrote the entire thing. This version's much better. And longer.

**Disclaimer: **See previous twenty four disclaimers in fic. All apply here.

**Chapter 25**

_Bella and Harry had slept together._

That phrase echoed through his mind as he stared at his cousin, who seemed had an extremely nervous expression on her features.

_Bella and Harry had slept together._

He couldn't believe it. He never had thought such a thing would happen. Ever. He genuinely hadn't thought that either would sleep with the other.

_Bella and Harry had slept together._

Sure, Bellatrix was - no, had been a Death Eater, tortured two people into insanity, gotten herself imprisoned in Azkaban twice and who knew what else, but he hadn't thought she would sleep with Harry. It just hadn't crossed his mind.

Sure, there had been a slight tension between Harry and Bella ever since he had gotten back, but he had supposed it due to Harry still not being over what she had done in the Department of Mysteries, or that, if Harry had been over that, something that had happened during the time they had been forced to spend in one another's company, both in Azkaban (though he wasn't sure why the ministry had placed the two of them together, he supposed it could have simply just been down to the stupidity of Fudge) and in the time after Bella had rescued Harry from Voldemort and then he had done the same in return, but neither had wanted to talk or think about it, so he hadn't mentioned it. It didn't seem important.

_Harry and Bella had slept together._

It obviously had been important, and now he wished he had.

_Harry and Bella had slept together._

* * *

'Oh shit,' Bella thought as she stared up at Sirius. 'Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit.'

His silence was probably the worst way he could have reacted. Actually, that was a lie. If he had accepted it it would have been worse. Sirius never accepted big news like this without a fuss, so it would have unsettled her more. This was almost as bad though.

With every passing moment she could see anger growing in his eyes, anger which she had only ever seen a few times before, long ago when they had just been kids, and in no way had that anger been directed at her as it was then, but she knew the full extent of what that anger could do. It was scary.

"S-Sirius?" she asked quietly, her voice betraying her fear even more than her face. She half didn't want to speak, to not snap him out of it so she wouldn't have to face his fury just yet. However, she also knew that if she hadn't of spoken she would have to face Sirius after his anger had reached his maximum and he acted even more irrationally and impulsively than she already knew he would. Yes, she was nervous. "Are you okay?"

He stared at her, his gaze turning slightly colder than it had been before. Now she wasn't scared as she had been before: she was terrified.

"How long?" Sirius asked her, and she grimaced as she heard the low, dangerous tone, the anger and, most of all, the fear in his voice. The anger she could understand, but fear? Fear of what?

"W-what?" she asked astounded at the question as much as the tone.

"How long?" he said simply again, this time adding more onto the end. "How long has this been going on? How long have you been doing -this- behind everybody backs? How long have you two been together?"

Sirius voice had risen more and more with each word, as had the anger in his eyes.

"How long," he spat out again, glaring furiously at her. "How long? Just... How long?"

"Si-Sirius, I - We-" She cut herself off, sighing. She was making excuses. Damn excuses that would do no good at that point. Damn excuses that, what with her cousins near manianical temper, could really end up putting her in some serious pain. "It just started last night. I swear it Sirius, we haven't been going behind a-"

"You haven't what?!" he practically screamed at her, and started to laugh humourlessly. "You haven't been going behind anyone's back? I can't believe that."

"Sirius - I swear!"

"You swear what? That nothing happened?! That your just friends, nothing more?! What Bellatrix?!"

Now he had gotten her mad. Not just mad either, but furious, furious to the same extent as he was.

"Is that what you think I was going to say?" yelled Bella, her voice rising. "Fine! I'll say it! We both know it's not true, but I'll say it anyway! Nothing happened! Me and Harry are just friends! Nothing more! Happy now?! Because I sure as hell am not!"

Sirius just stared at her then, all fury vanishing from his eyes and was replaced with shock, shock which quickly was replaced with amusement, and before he knew it he was literally rolling on the floor, laughing hysterically, clutching his sides.

"And just what is so funny?!" she demanded, still rabid with anger.

"This!" Sirius managed to gasp out, looking at her then laughing all over again. She just 'hmphed'.

* * *

Just outside the door of Bella's room Ehno chuckled lightly as he listened in. Again, it wasn't because he found it funny in the same sense as Sirius probably did. He chuckled because Sirius Black was unpredictable, further strengthening his belief that Sirius was The One, and his steadily increasing unpredictability indicated that the world would soon be ready, indicated that he would soon be gone for good. And he could hardly wait.

* * *

Harry twittered nervously outside a window, plainly hearing the yelling that was going on inside by Sirius, occasionally broken by pleading on Bella's part for him to see sense and then Sirius' yelling resumed, eventually punctured by Bella's yelling. Finally he heard Sirius' laughter, the last thing he had thought he would hear. Sirius laughing after he had undoubtedly heard everything.

Harry had come back from about five or so miles away, where he had been simply thinking about things, when he had remembered where he had left his note. In Bella's room. He didn't know how he could have been so stupid, but he had been, and, as he had later found out when he had arrived back, Sirius had found out, and had been undoubtedly furious.

Fortunately he had missed the main brunt of his godfather's anger (as selfish as it seemed to have left Bella to face it alone), but there was still a risk for him to receiving a small amount of it.

Sucking in a deep breath through his bill, Harry tapped on the window, attracting their attention.

* * *

Wormtail leaned up against a tree, silently cursing himself for everything that had happened over the past fifteen years. If he hadn't of been such a damned coward then none of this would have happened. Okay, so he would probably have died for refusing the join Voldemort, but then so many others would be alive. Lily... James... that Diggory kid... the muggles the Dark Lord had killed to regain his power... Sirius... **(A/N: Before anyone asks, no, Wormtail does not know Sirius is still alive) **and countless others wouldn't be dead. And all because of his own selfish, cowardly actions. He hadn't deserved to be in Gryffindor, he felt, he didn't even deserve to go to Hogwarts for being such a coward.

He looked around, putting his previous thoughts to the back of his mind as he knew there was no real point in guilt. There was nothing to gain from it, as was there nothing he could do. It would simply make more sense to accept it and try to move on.

Move on. Yeah, right, like he'd be able to do that. He was dead. There was very little more moving on he could do anymore. But there was still some. He did have, as some muggles said, 'unfinished business' at the time of his death, and that was part of the reason why he hadn't at all gone to the afterlife. He had been told he had to finish his business on Earth, then part of him would go onto the afterlife, whilst the rest (due to his fear of it) would remain for the rest of time. Now all he needed to do was find out what his unfinished business was, and complete it. Nothing too complicated. Hopefully.

He carried on surveying the surrounding area as these thoughts went into his mind one by one, but they were quickly stopped as he spotted something that was quite unusual for the time of year, or, at least, it would have been several years ago, for the time of year. Just recently it had been becoming more and more commonplace for it to be so.

There was a serious lack of snow. There wasn't any on the trees, ground, plants or anywhere. Muggles blamed this phenomenon on their own Global Warming theory (where the 'greenhouse gases' that they created by using certain things in excess prevented the sun's rays from leaving the atmosphere like they should) and they shouldered the blame. Wizards, however, also blamed it on Global Warming, though they had what could be considered a slightly stranger, but definitely a more inventive explanation. The wizards explanation was that over the last few millennia there had been an extreme number of warming and heating charms used during cold times, each having a little excess heat left over which then went into the atmosphere, and, though each heating charm only added the tiniest amount of heat, it was enough to, eventually, result in the entire planet warming up and there to be less snow at Christmas. Personally he thought the muggle's explanation was more believable.

**A/N: **Yay! I like this more than I liked the first version I wrote! Plus it's like five hundred words longer! Woooooohoooooo! I can't tell you how much happier I am! Something about this one just seemed click, and it stayed clicking! Well, except for a brief part which I immediately got rid of and replaced with something I like _so_ much better!

**NateP: **I know it was mean, but it was well worth it! But you have yet to find out what Sirius will do to Harry.

**Amscray: **I know it's predictable, but there are some things people have to be predictable with, and that's one of them as it's too hard to do anything else. And who was Edward the Martyr? The name sounds familiar, but I just can't place who he was.

**Roxoan: **Thanks! I like being original! And what do you mean by finally?! It only took me twenty-four chapters to get the interactions! That's not long! I skipped Halloween though. I never like the holiday.

**Be0t: **This chapter's longer!

**Spinal Sun: **Oh, it's quite simple; I just skipped a few months.

**Shadowface: **Here ya go!

**Uten: **You can't work it out? Oh dear me, it looks like you'll have to wait to find out or until I give some more clues.

**Heaven's Reaper: **The Italian kid is one of my greater mysteries.

**jeangab057: **No wonder you didn't review! Teeheehee! Wonderful line, wasn't it?

**possom2009: **Yes! Another person converted to Harry-Bellaism!

**Lek Nufrac: **No, I'm a hypocrite too. Everyone's a hypocrite, they just don't admit it.

**D:** okay

**fireprincess804: **I got you addicted to the pairing? Just let me add you to the list ::takes out scroll of parchment which unrolls to a length of several miles and scrawls 'fireprincess804' on end of list:: There you go!

**The Vampire Story Hunter:** Why did I expect a review like that from you?

**A. Person: **Lol! Thanks! Okay, let me just say that when I chose Ehno's name I chose it for a specific reason. I'm not saying more than that at this point. As to what's obvious... Think about Sirius' actually personality (which I hope I captured in the diary entry). Something about it is what Ehno found so obvious. I hate Ron so much because... I don't know. He never seemed like a trustworthy sort of person, and there's some other stuff too, like his impulsiveness and temper, but that's basically it.

**Topsta: **Well, that's certainly one way of putting it.

**griffin14: **Thanks!

**Blackhand The Destroyer: **Okay! I will!

**Kellalor: **You'd better!

**Krissy Riddle: **But cliffies are fast becoming my speciality!


	26. Chapter 26

**A/N: **Just in case anyone's curious, I have decided to rewrite the earlier chapters (not many of them, only one through twenty-five) because, looking back at them, they suck. Big time. I am not starting to see why one of my reviewers said that during the time I have been writing this fic my writing has improved loads. So far I've replaced chapter one, so feel free to go back and read the new version, possibly review whilst I work one getting both new chapters and improved chapters out whilst working on my other fics.

Oh yeah, one other thing. I think I've realised where I've been going wrong with the romance in this fic. So far I've been trying to describe the feeling of falling in love, which is something I have yet to do, so it's been pretty hopeless. However, now I have realised where I was going wrong, and I hope to correct that mistake from now on.

**Disclaimer: **You know, I'm thinking about placing a disclaimer on my epitaph. I'm thinking 'SHE WHO LIES HERE CLAIMS NO OWNERSHIP OF HARRY POTTER OR ANY RELATED CHARACTERS.' Think that'll work?

**Chapter 26**

Tanhisial watched the mortal realm through basin filled with a liquid of some sorts. It was, though it was simply a window to the mortal world, the only way she could view what went on outside the world she herself had created so long ago, a world that was now dying because of the fact that many of the old stories had been forgotten or deliberately ignored by mankind for their own gain.

It was sad, really, that she had been forced to take her people to this realm, but had she not... well, her people would all have been like the descendants of the ones whom had chosen to stay on Earth; nothing more that house elves, basically slaves to humans. There had been no way she could have allowed that.

Sometimes though, she wished she had chosen another path for her people. By bringing them to this place she had been trying to ensure their survival, and it had worked for a while. But then, after several generations, the number of new-born elves had decreased exponentially, and at about the same time, other elves were starting to die a lot younger than they had, equalling in a decrease in population.

All of the elves had hoped and prayed to Dorito, the most powerful God among the Immortal Elders according to legend **(A/N: If this doesn't comply to any of the Elvin Gods you know of from books and stuff, that's because I'm making up my own Elvin culture and I feel like using stupid names like Dorito for their Gods! Just be thankful I didn't call one Sausage!)**, that this was only temporary, though many had realised it would not be so. It was just a shame that it had been so.

She waved a hand over the basin, changing the picture just below the surface from that of a bloody war somewhere on Earth, scene which shocked still shocked after hundreds of years. The brutality of humanity was immense, but what was more shocking was the fact that they could be so compassionate a lot of the rest of the time, such was the picture unravelling before her eyes.

In the basin, one similar to that of a wizard's pensieve, showed the inside of a hospital, where a woman was holding her newborn baby, her husband standing beside her. It was truly a heart warming scene, and gave her the idea that mankind was not all bad. Until the next thing happened.

A man rushed into the room, holding a gun out in front of him. He seemed to yell something, something that Tanhisial couldn't hear through liquid, and the woman's husband stood in front of her trying to protect his new family. The man with the gun glared at him, and pointed the barrel of his handgun straight at him. The woman looked away, and Tanhisial, knowing what would happen, waved her hand over the basin again, changing the scene, unable to watch the murders that would have taken place.

Now inside the basin was a picture of a dark-haired boy, listening in on a conversation from outside a closed door. She chuckled. Ehno certainly was always curious. That could possibly be why his disguise as a human child worked so well, even if he was far from young.

* * *

Ehno let a lop-sided grin come to his features. He could feel that someone was watching him, and he knew who. Trust Tanhisial to keep such close tabs on both himself and humans. He was just surprised that she had never intervened with his eavesdropping - something which was considered terrible by elf standards. Speaking of eavesdropping, he decided to turn back to the conversation.

"Harry! Stop!" He knew that voice. It was Sirius.

"But are you sure your alright with this?" That was the boy-who-lived.

"Yes! Now stop worrying! It's Christmas! Enjoy yourself!"

"Why are you being so accepting? I thought you would have freaked though!"

"Are you complaining about it?"

"No."

"Then stop asking!"

"But-"

"If it'll shut you up, I did freak out, now go! It's Christmas! You should not be arguing on such a great day where people are haunted by the ghosts of Christmas Presents!"

"But-"

"Harry! Stop asking whether Sirius is alright with it! Just accept that he is! And get here now!"

Ehno chuckled at what Bella had said. He could just imagine what she was getting him to do, and if he knew the people in this house well enough...

"Ew! Don't do that while I'm in the room!"

Yep, Sirius would be grossed out. it seemed like Sirius had had enough of his godson and cousin making out after only a few more seconds and the man ran from the room, knocking Ehno over in the process.

"Ciao uomo dell'elefante! Però difettate di un cervello?" Ehno said cheerfully, wanting to keep up his guise of the annoying kid who couldn't understand a word you were saying. _Hello Elephant man! Do you still lack a brain?_

Sirius groaned, and walked away down the hall, Ehno following him, constantly asking him things in Italian.

* * *

Later that day when Harry and Bella finally came down, at well past midday. They came down together to a near silent house (apart from the chatter of the Order in the Living room. The two of them made their way to the kitchen where they hoped there would be no one. To their dismay they were disappointed.

"Hiya Auntie Bella! Uncle Harry!" Tonks said, bouncing over to see them, but whacked into the table before she got to them.

Harry and Bella both groaned at what she was calling them.

"Sirius told everyone, didn't he?" Bella said, just getting over her embarrassment at the nickname her niece had come up with.

"I'll say he did, you Death Eater scum."

Everyone's attention turned to a woman that Harry had no seen before, nor had he noticed she was standing there. She had shoulder length chestnut hair, was about mid-height and looked a lot like Bella.

"Andromeda," Bella acknowledged the sister she had not seen in years.

**A/N: **::holds hands up in front of face:: Don't shoot! I had serious trouble with this chapter! And I mean loads! Not to mention I am now back at school, buried under tonnes of GCSE coursework already! And, I'm also rewriting the first 25 chapters of this (for every chapter of anything I upload I plan to rewrite a chapter and up that up) which, so far, I've only re-done the first chapter.

And I know this is a terrible cliffie, but I had to leave it there! I just had to!

**possom2009**: Hmmm, well, I don't really bother too much with pairings. You could try Slytherinnette's An Alternate Adventure. The Goblet of Fire one has a Harry/Hermione pairing, but it's one of the few I read, along with Classic Cowboy's HPX series, but they're X:Men crossovers. I don't really read too many fics with pairings in though.

**Klaus** **Baudelaire, Shadowface, tessa**: Thanks!

**NateP**: For answer please see above.

**Zaraky**: Well, some people just can't be pleased.

**The Desert Fox**: For this, Harry does not know how to play drums or guitar, as for whether he's a good singer, he might be, but he doesn't know. And thanks for the clarification on Edward the Martyr.

**Blackhand The Destroyer**: Yeah, I know it doesn't count as a pairing yet, but I swear it will be by the time I'm finished.

**HellHound**: Lol! Yeah, answering reviews is the easiest way to use up extra space. I do it all the time. And to be honest, when I wrote the chapter I didn't fully consider the fact that it was a cliffie.

**The Vampire Story Hunter**: Probably. And it's not my fault about the length! I just stop where it seems right. Or where I stop being able to write the chapter.

**SiriusRulz14**: I try!

**Topsta**: Thanks! And his name is EHNO, not echo. He's... well, it's a secret.

**Laughinggurl**: I don't really care about the age thing. I've seen Harry/Dumbledore pairings, for pizza's sake!

**Dr Gero**: Thanks! AU means Alternate Universe and I've read that. It's cool.

**Jimmy, HeeroYuyZ**: Yeah, I know that now, I just can't be bothered to correct it.

**Somebodywhoreadsalo**t: ::giggles:: Every time I see your name I just see one word in it that draws my attention in it. Sorry, but yes, it is.

**Kittyofwonder**: ooooooh! Looooong review! Over an hour to read? Coolies! As for Ron, he deserves no friends! He may have been cute in the third movies, but he deserves no friends! ::blushes:: Is it really? And don't kill yourself! Please! I'd lose a reviewer! (Teeheehee!) I am not aging or de-aging either of them. So there! It's a good idea, but I don't like altering people's ages. And I am not royalty. I am a strange kid from England.

**BellaBlack**: Thanks! And I do! ::glares at bird-Harry::

**jeangab057**: Yes, Pettigrew is a ghost.

**A. Person**: Yes, I do mean Ehno when I said he would be gone for good. Here's another clue about Ehno, if you're trying to find out the clue with his name. His name is Italian, for what he is doing on Earth.

**Potts**: of course! And Sirius says... Well, you can pretty much guess what he said.

**Ravensblack**: Nope! He doesn't yell much at all!

**Topps**: Okay!


	27. Chapter 27

**A/N: **Yes, it's me again. Time for me to resole that cliffie, and maybe put up a new one... if I fancy going through loads of threatening reviews in the morning... Actually, I don't fancy any death threats any time soon, so I'm gonna try and make this chapter kinda... ::cringes:: fluffy for a bit part way through. Plus it's quite a long chapter, so... think of that as a kind of thanks for me having received nearly 400 reviews! In fact, I should too 400 with this chapter.

**Disclaimer: **Have you considered the fact that I'm _disclaiming _something in a _fanfiction_ may indicate that I don't own the majority of things in the fanfic? With the exception of Ehno, Tanhisial and basically the entire Elven Realm in this fic.

**Chapter 27**

Wormtail glanced around the latest area he had floated to, London. Wonderful, he thought sarcastically. Now he could risk being, well, he wasn't quite sure what he could risk having done to him if he saw someone who he knew had was the one responsible for betraying Lily and James, and basically responsible for thousands of death. But he did know it wouldn't be good.

Floating along a little way further down the road he was on, Wormtail kept glancing around. He was sure he had been here before. But where was it? And when had he been there? He couldn't quite remember...

Shrugging, he dismissed the thought. There had probably been a raid on this street at some point or something. No point in worrying about it, really.

"What's going on?" asked Sirius as he walked into the kitchen and spotted a full out fight going on between Bellatrix and Andromeda. Harry and Tonks were just talking quietly in a corner.

"We don't known," replied Harry. "They just started fighting."

"Why didn't you stop them then?" Sirius asked, and grinned at the expressions on both Harry and Tonks' faces.

"Now why didn't we think of that!" exclaimed Tonks, then walked towards her mother and her aunt with the intent of breaking it up before either of them got seriously injured. But, Tonks, being Tonks, tripped over the table leg and hit her head on the floor. "Ow!" she moaned, sending Sirius into hysterical laughter.

Bella and Andromeda looked up at the sound of their cousin's laughter, having not noticed his entrance.

"Sirius, you-" Andromeda started, but cut herself off when she spotter her daughter on the floor. "Nymphadora! Get up this instant!"

Tonks blushed bright red, though whether it was from the use of her first name or from her mother yelling, it was not possible to determine. Bella's eyes lit up.

"Nymphadora?" the blond asked, a devilish look coming to her face. Tonks growled.

"Yes," the metamorphmagus looked as if she were about to say something else, but when she glanced at her mother's disapproving expression she must have thought better of it as she didn't say a word more.

"Now, as I was saying," Andromeda started up again, turning everyone's attention back towards herself and Sirius. "WHY THE HELL DIDN'T YOU TELL ME THAT _SHE_ WOULD BE HERE?!"

"Um," Sirius winced. "Well, I thought it could be a surprise?"

Bella listened as her sister gave out a growl, before ignoring Sirius' and Andromeda's conversation in favour of annoying her only niece with her new found knowledge of her name.

"So, _Nymphadora,_" she said, taking great care to stress the name.

"Call me that again," Tonks growled in a low voice. "And I will make sure there isn't a body for them not to find."

Bella blinked at Tonks' threat. She hadn't expected that from an Auror, but then again, not all Aurors had a total respect for the law.

"_Nymphadora!_" Andromeda snapped, and Bella smirked at Tonks' blushed again.

"Mu-um!" Tonks tried to appeal to her mother, but it was too late. Andromeda had already gone back to talking to (as in yelling at) Sirius.

Bella glanced around the room. Something was wrong. She was annoying Nymphadora, Andromeda was yelling at Sirius but... There was something - or rather someone - missing. Then it struck her.

Where was Harry?

Harry, having had enough of the yelling that was taking place in the kitchen, had taken advantage of being ignored for the moment to get the hell out of there, knowing it could have turned very ugly. Plus it gave him a chance to properly use his teleportation powers for the first time, and was currently relaxing on the bank of Lake Mar Chiquita in Argentina, having taken a moment in the Elven Realm to talk to Tanhisial.

Vaguely he wondered how long it would be until anyone noticed he was gone. He knew it wouldn't be long, but he could always hope, right? Okay, so maybe it would be better just to go back before... What was he thinking?! Of course he wouldn't go back yet! He had only just begun to relax! And the shores were quiet because it was Christmas Day.

Harry glanced over the lake. He had never been there before, but there was a sign proclaiming what the place was. Lake Mar Chiquita. Cool name. Harry had no idea what it meant, but it was still a cool name. And a big lake. A very big lake. In fact, he couldn't see the other side, though that wasn't saying much due to his terrible eyesight.

He sighed. He worked it out that he had been gone for half an hour and he had no doubt that they were really likely to be going out of their minds by then. Of course, if it had been someone else, then they wouldn't have worried but no, Harry Potter couldn't vanish inexplicably for a length of time. Such a thing was unheard of! Shock, horror! Now he was on a whole other continent, and there was nothing they could do about it... unless they found him.

He guesstimated that he had about five more minutes for they would really start to worry and break out the tracking charms. Pity, it was fun for him to be by himself for once. Shame it didn't happen to often.

If any muggle had of looked down at the lake shore at that exact moment in time they would have seen a boy no older than sixteen vanish into thin air, though they probably would have dismissed it as a hallucination.

Harry reappeared back in his room in Grimmauld Place, knowing that no one would be in there. He was right, and everything was exactly as he had left it the last time he had been in there. The bed was unmade, his clothes all over the floor, Bella standing beside the door, parchment scattered throughou-

Harry's eyes nearly popped out of their socket when he saw her was staring at him, with a look torn somewhere between amusement and shock on her face. Slowly Bella turned towards the door.

"It's alright!" she called as she slowly shut it. "I've found him! There's no need to worry." Bella turned to him, "you on the other hand..."

Harry gulped, having seen what Black women were capable of when angered, and his immediate future did not bode well. Unless, Harry thought as he realised there was a slim glimmer of hope, Bella wasn't angry. Yes, he would go with that thought. That thought was best, that thought wasn't scary.

"You, my boy, have a lot of explaining to do," Bella said quietly. Harry looked tongue-tied for a moment before he slowly began to tell Bella the whole story of what he had been experiencing in his dreams with Tanhisial, editing it of a few details he would rather keep to himself.

Late that night, when most inhabitants of Grimmauld Place were safely tucked up in their beds, only two people were still awake, and they were Harry Potter and Bellatrix Black. If anyone had of looked in on them they would have seen to people in a perfectly content silence, Bella curled up reading a book on curses and her head resting on Harry's chest as he read through _Quidditch Through the Ages, _his arm around her.

However, Bella was not reading her book. She was thinking about how the world would react should the two of them ever have their names cleared and find out about their relationship which had greatly progressed that day.

It was with grim satisfaction that she realised she knew what the headlines would be in the Prophet. _'Boy-Who-Lived dates Death Eater!'_ would probably be a popular title for a story, '_Potter Finds Love in Dark Lord's Girl'_ may be popular too, but, contrary to that title, she was not, nor had she ever been, the Dark Lord's girl. It was just a stupid rumour started up by Narcissa to annoy her which had gotten out of control. Hrmph! Like she would ever share a bed with that monster, even _when_ he had been good looking. He was far too much of an ego-maniac for her tastes.

That was another thing that had been bothering her of late. Up until under six months ago she had been fully loyal to Voldemort, but all that had changed in a space of little more than four weeks, staring out with her pleading with the Voldemort for Harry's life, then helping the boy escape, practically sealing her own fate, her own death. But she was not dead. She was very much alive, and that was down to the person who she was laying against at that point in time.

Bella shivered involuntarily, making Harry wrap his arm around her tighter. She leaned into his touch, glad to finally have someone whom she loved. Well, she had liked Rodulphus, but that had been an arranged marriage, and they were little more than friends. Harry, on the other hand, Harry was totally different. Harry was the love of her life, something which she had known for a while, but had never gotten around to doing anything about. Until she was drunk.

Funny, really, she thought. She hadn't managed to admit to Harry that she had liked him like that when they had been stone cold sober, but after a little - okay, a lot - of alcohol, they had somehow ended up in bed together, and, over the course of the day, had gotten together. And people said alcohol was a bad thing!

Bella yawned, and pulled Harry up, noticing that the clock on the wall said it was two thirty.

"Come on, time for bed," she said, pulling Harry upstairs. She watched with some reluctance as the person she loved walked through the door to his room, leaving her alone in the corridor, wishing that he had gone with her.

Only a matter of two hours later Bella was woken by a searing pain in her arm. She could have screamed it was so bad. It was the first time the dark mark had put her in so much agony, she thought, gulping. Voldemort must be really angry.

Getting up out of bed, she made her way downstairs hurriedly, calling Kreacher as she went.

"Get me some ice, now," she hissed threateningly through the pain at the elf.

"Yes mistress, Kreacher will get mistress her ice," the elf bowed, positively gleeful at the thought of serving those he view to be his worthy owners (meaning the one's the her aunt hadn't declared blood-traitors and vermin) in the middle of the night. She never would understand house elves.

Bella got down to the kitchen by the time Kreacher got the ice ready, which he was carrying in his hands like the moron she took him to be.

"Kreacher has mistress's ice," the pitiful elf said, trying to bow low and keep hold of the ice. It was needless to say he failed miserably, as the ice kept slipping out of his grip and onto the floor.

"Put the ice in a bag," she growled and the elf hurried to obey. Finally when he got the ice into a bag Bella grabbed it and placed it on her arm, praying that it would help ease the pain from the summons. Fortunately, it did, though not by much.

"Does mistress require anything else from Kreacher?"

"No," she spat at the elf. "Now get out of my sight."

The elf was gone in an instant, and Bella sat down, the bag of ice still on her arm, effectively numbing it.

"You shouldn't treat that elf so badly," growled a voice from the corner, Andromeda.

"And why not?"

"Because it has served the family faithfully for years," Andromeda said, walking out from the shadows. "Haven't you ever heard of house elf rights?"

"House elf rights?" Bella asked incredulously. "House elves don't have rights!"

"Maybe they would," snarled Andromeda. "If people weren't as close minded as Death Eaters like you!"

"Are you calling me a Death Eater?!"

"Well if the shoe fits!"

"Huh? What shoe?"

Andromeda groaned at her sister's cluelessness.

"It's a muggle expression," she explained quickly. "And I am calling you a Death Eater!"

"I am not a Death Eater!"

"You have the Dark Mark! You served You-Know-Who for years, even went to Azkaban for him! Twice!"

"So?! Just because I took the Dark Mark and went to Azkaban for Voldemort - and for goodness sake, stop flinching! It's just a name!- doesn't make me a Death Eater!"

"Yeah, it just makes you his whore."

Bellatrix glowered at her sister, and put the ice down on the table as she got up.

"Never call me a Death Eater again, and _never, ever_ call me his whore. I would _never_ have slept within, even when I was crazily fanatical about him."

"Are you going to tell me why you aren't a Death Eater when there's so obviously a snake and skull tattoo on your arm?"

Bella growl and turned away. Why should she have to explain herself to this blood trai- No! She wouldn't think that! If she ever wanted to stop being a Death Eater first she'd need to stop thinking of people as Blood Traitors. It just wasn't right. She was related to Andromeda after all, being sisters and all. Still... when Andromeda has left home (or ran away, depending on how you looked at it) it had hurt. Andromeda had always been the baby of the family, yet she decided to leave first. But that hadn't been what hurt. What had hurt was the way they parted.

"_You're going then?" Bella asked as she came downstairs and watched her little sister heave her bag to the door._

"_Of course, I am not staying around to listen to Mother and Father sprout that pureblood nonsense about superiority to Aunt and Uncle."_

_Bella's face fell as she heard Andromeda's answer, not that it had been held very high before. So it was true... her mother had told her and Narcissa the truth. Their little sister _was_ a blood traitor._

"_Well don't come back," she had sneered. "Muggle-loving Gryffindors are _not_ welcome here."_

_Bella had watched the look of pain and betrayal flicker across Andromeda's face, before it was masked with anger._

"_I don't intend to," she muttered as she left the house, closing the door, but not before muttering 'Death Eater' at Bella then disappearing off to her boyfriend, Ted Tonks' house._

That had hurt, she had to admit. She had lost her littlest sister that day, and she had never been able to forgive her. Never.

"I stopped being a Death Eater the moment I started to care about Harry and I went against Voldemort's orders to save his life," she ground out at her sister, whose face was suddenly filled with shock.

"Y-you saved Harry Potter's life?" Andromeda stammered, shocked to say the least. "And went against He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named's orders?"

Bella nodded steely, and walked towards the door, but was stopped by a hand on her arm.

"I'm sorry, I had no idea," Andromeda muttered, looking away. "Nymphadora never told me."

Bellatrix's eyes widened at idea of her niece neglecting that piece of information, though it was hardly surprising. The girl did seem rather forgetful at odd moments. Wanting to get off of the topic, she fished around for another, only to find it right in front of her nose.

"_What_ in the _world_ possessed you to call her Nymphadora?"

"Ted's idea," Andromeda rolled her eyes, and Bella felt that this might be the renewal of where their friendship as sisters had left off years ago, when Andromeda had first started Hogwarts.

**A/N: **OMG! Over 2600 words to the actual chapter part alone! OMG! This is the longest chapter I've ever written! Amazing! But I just had to get the slight fluff in (I still hate fluff) and the last part with Andromeda in.

Oh yeah, and don't forget to check out the rewritten chapters at some point. I've done four of them now.

**NateP:** Yay! Ehno's still a mystery! Yes! Woohoo! And I don't know why I'm so happy about that fact.

**Laughinggurl:** Okay, I'll tell everyone. I'm really a fifth of the way done with rewriting them now. I could also tell that KOW's kinda of obsessed. It's kind of obvious. And funny. I think there's several HarryDumbledor pairings. It's about the only pairing that freaks me out anymore, and even that barely affects me. Go figure.

**Thanos Farek Seid:** Well this chapter's certainly longer.

**Amscray:** Thanks for explaining who desert fox was. Yes, Dorito. So I'm crazy enough to name a God after snack food. I think it's a good name. Very yummy.

**NatalieJ: **Meh, the work load's evened out now and I'm not bowed under it all. But I may use workload as an excuse to get out of updating.

**Kittyofwonder:** Yeah, it was kinda sucky, which is why I replaced it. And oh well, I'm sure you can survive without the action-packededness for a while, while I worked on getting Harry and Bella together.

**E:** I will.

**Shadowface:** ::sighs:: So much flattery.

**jeangab057:** yes, oh.

**ChrismKing208: **Yeah, Andomeda is pretty easy to forget about. I mean, she is only mentioned in the books, and that's only once or twice.

**Rei:** Thanks! What subjects did you take? Coz then you may be able to help me with my coursework.

**Sappjody:** I plan to do a sequelly thing after this, but that won't be a while. After all, this has to be finished first.

**Kateydidnt:** Yeah, I know that now. I was just generalising.

**Mr. Mysterious:** ::rolls eyes:: Fine, when I get to chapters with notes in the middle of them I'll remove them and put them at the end. And it's not necessarily easier to write a capital I than a lower case one. I, for example, have always written it as not just a simple downward stroke, but with a crossbar line thing at the top and bottom because that's how I was taught to write.

**Amora:** yeah... I was kind of eating Doritos at the time... and then a muse came to me who also happens to be an Elvin God and told me that Dorito is the best name for Gods, though that could be because he's called Dorito too.

**A. Person:** Lol, that's not quite what I meant, be Ehno isn't a direct translation, but an actual Italian name that means, well, I'm not telling. Find out for yourself. And of course I've done worse cliffies. Though in my opinion, they were better!

**Topsta:** Fine, I'll try and put in more descriptions of what they do, but I'm not promising anything as I've never written a sex scene.

**jpthug12:** Thank ye very muchly!

**Ryua Malfoy:** Good!

Oh, and one last thing before I finish. I'm thinking of making Bella becoming pregnant a little way further on in this fic. Anyone like this idea?


	28. Chapter 28

**A/N:** Well, the idea of Bella becoming pregnant seems popular, so she will be by the end of this fic, but the child/children (could be twins, lol) will have a story about him/her/them.

Another note is that, I'm ashamed to say it; I'm running out of ideas for this fic. I struggled to even come up with a start for this chapter and have been doing so for a while. I think the pregnancy one was the last decent idea I'll come up with for this fic itself, so I'm going to be ending it son, and putting up a sequel which will probably focus around the kid(s) mainly.

And finally, I've decided that I no longer need to rewrite chapters from chapter 6 onwards, since that's basically where my writing improves at an dramatic pace, so I will only be rewriting them or correcting chapters if anyone requests it.

**Disclaimer:** See previous twenty seven chapters. Nothing has changed.

**Chapter twenty eight**

"_Harry?" Bella called out, glancing around nervously. Where in Merlin's name was he? He had just been there, hadn't he? "Harry, honey, are you there?"_

"_Yes, yes I am," a sneering voice came from behind her, making her jump. "What do _you _want?"_

_Bella turned to face Harry, noting instantly that something was off. His face normally didn't have that revolting expression on it, and he was acting... she wasn't quite certain, but it wasn't normal for him._

"_Harry, what's wrong?" she asked, unsure of herself, and whether or not she wanted to know._

"_Nothing's wrong, _darling,"_he said, looking down his nose her. "Why would there be?"_

"_But..." Bella started to ask, slightly confused. He was definitely acting of._

_Harry started chuckling, and walking around her. Bella stood stock still, unsure of where this was going, and, again, not wanting to know._

"_Dear, dear Bella, what shall I do with you," he muttered in a low voice as he circled her. Bella stiffened even more, knowing something ghastly was going to happen. She was right._

_From behind her, Harry grabbed her arm, pulling her around to face him and squeezing her so much that it hurt._

"_Harry, let go of me!" she ordered him, beseeched. "Let go of me now!"_

_The horrible expression on his face worsened, the sneer getting larger and larger, crueller and crueller._

"_No, I don't think I will."_

_By this point Bella began to really feel beyond terrified._

"_Harry, please stop," she pleaded at him when he shoved her down on a bed she hadn't noticed before. "I'm serious Harry, let go! You're hurting me!"_

"_Quiet!" Harry hissed at her. "Do you want everyone to hear?"_

"_Let go!" she yelled louder, struggling to free her arm from his icy cold grasp._

_Harry hissed at her to be quiet once again, but she refused. He growled and raised a hand. He brought it down quickly, coming into contact with her face and-_

Bella gasped as she woke up, sweating profusely and hardly daring to move less it had been real and she was in a blissful state of unconsciousness. Gradually she got up the courage to move again, and was relieved to find that it was not so as the memories of the previous night came back to her.

Only a month had passed since Christmas, yet both her and Harry had gotten closer and closer in that time, most likely due to the little power Harry had been keeping hidden from everyone which had come in handed for getting away from everyone at certain times, and last night the two of them had taken the first really big step together. Okay, so they had slept together once before, but that didn't count. They weren't dating then, so it hadn't meant anything. Plus they were drunk. Bella scowled at the, uh, non-memory. What could possibly have the greatest night of her life, and she had been so drunk out of her mind that she couldn't remember it! Damn muggles and their extremely intoxicating but extremely tasty alcohol!

Bella smiled at the thought of the night before. This time she could remember it and it had been phenomenal. Just... phenomenal. It was indescribably. And now... Bella's stomach gave what she perceived to be a loud rumble, one which she was surprised hadn't woken Harry. She was hungry.

Down in the kitchen Bella's stomach gave another loud rumble as she began to raid the cupboards for something that would satisfy her odd craving for mint humbugs and apples covered in raspberry jam. For some reason she had been craving them for the past couple of days. Why was a whole other matter. She had no clue.

She placed the humbugs on the table after finding them, and then set out to find the jam, the apples already in a fruit bowl on the table. About two minutes more of rummaging about in the cupboards she finally found it behind a dusty jar of pickles.

Tap tap tap!

Bella growled as he heard the tapping, and placed the jam jar down on the table. Why did they have to get the early edition of the Daily Prophet anyway? Especially since it came so early?

Tap tap tap! Tap tap tap!

"All right, all right," Bella ground out as she walked over to the window and threw it open. The bird flew in and dropped the paper on the table, extending the leg with a leather pouch on it for money.

When it flew off Bella glanced down at the headline, only to faint as soon as she saw it:

_**Confessions of the Dead: Potter and Black Innocent, Lestrange Woman Reformed.**_

**A/N: **OMG, this chapter is so short. It didn't even make it to 800 words! And I left off with yet another cliffie (even if it means kinda good news in the fic)! So if you want to have me hung, drawn and quartered, I don't blame you. Oh, and I am sorry this chapter took so long, but, for some inexplicable reason, I couldn't concentrate on it. I think it may have had something to do with the fact I was planning stuff about the kid, like a personality, looks and name. Well, that's enough of my rambling.

**lCC:** Thanks! Glad you like my name!

**Thanos Farek Seid:** Thanks!

**Rock and Sarcasm:** Um... okay, bye.

**Padfoot-Marauders-Rule, Blackhand/Exzlayer:** Will do.

**Kittyofwonder:** Lol, well, one of you two is obsessed. The kid may get freaked out by the age difference between Harry and Bella, but I think it would be more weirded out that Harry is the Boy-Who-Lived and Bella was a Death Eater.

**Ryua Malfoy:** Lol, knowing Harry, it's likely.

**Amscray:** Bella has black hair, and Narcissa only changed Bella's hair to blond in the AU. And I don't think I ever said who was the baby of the family... oh wait! I did! I said in Sirius' diary that Bella was oldest and Andromeda was the youngest. Napoleon XIV?

**NatalieJ:** You sure it's been genuine?

**EmaraldThrone:** Lol, lots of possibilities. So far I've only said that Bella will be pregnant, meaning that it'll be her kid. The kid will almost certainly have a cool name (probably Welsh, since that's where Godric's Hollow is supposed to be) and I'll probably send it to Beauxbatons or a school I'll make up, but I'm not sure. The fifth point you made... I'm not too sure I'll be making Bella an animagus at all, since it's supposed to be hard to do.

**finn mcgovern:** Okay, will do!

**W0lf QuEEn:** Lol, okay, update, right.

**Topsta:** Lol, that's good to know.

**NateP: **Lol, good! Coz you're getting the pregnancy!

**harrysgal8:** Harry's 16, so I can see where you're coming from, but he'll be 17 by the time to kid's born, and legally an adult in the magical world.

**coolone007-2:** Climax? Like the one I just announced?

**awsome twin:** In chapter 24 I implied that they had.


	29. Chapter 29

**A/N: **Okay, I really have got this chapter out quickly for me. And I mean real quickly, but before I start on it, there is something I need to address.

Bella's pregnancy (before they know it as a pregnancy) will not be totally like a normal one. That is due to the magic from both Bella and the baby, which, in my mind, is a logical explanation for any inconsistencies between a real pregnancy, and Bella's.

So, on with the fic!

**Disclaimer: **Do not own, wish I did.

**Chapter 29**

_**Confessions of the Dead: Potter and Black Innocent, Lestrange Woman Reformed.**_

_Possibly the Worst Ministry Foul-up for Centuries!_

_By Tabitha Commère_

_It is not a widely known fact of why ghosts linger amongst the living when they themselves are not. However, there are two reasons for this. The first is that they were scared to die at the time of their death. The other is that they have unfinished business. Should a ghost remain on this plain due to unfinished business the ghost will try to finish it before moving on._

_One such ghost is Peter Pettigrew. Loyal readers of the _Prophet_ will know that a little over fifteen years ago, less than a day after He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named's first fall, Peter Pettigrew was blown into thousands of pieces by one Sirius Black, but not before shouting for the whole world to hear the words 'Lily and James, Sirius! How could you!' The largest part of his body was a finger and the he was awarded the Order of Merlin, First Class_

_However, now it appears that the entire world was deceived by some trickery on Pettigrew's part._

_Recently discovered floating around central London by the Ministry, he was brought in, simply to be asked where he had been for the past fifteen years, as a ghost rarely takes a whole fifteen years to come back down to our plain, and to be told to avoid highly populated Muggle areas. But the answers given by Pettigrew in accordance to his whereabouts were, to say the least, shocking, though assuredly true due to the Dead's inability to tell a lie._

_It appears that Pettigrew had spent almost twelve of the thirteen years hiding out in his unregistered rat animagus form with a family of pureblood witches and wizards. The most recent three years have been spent in the presence of He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named, as one of his servants._

_At this point in time it is reported that the Minister, multiple witnesses and several Aurors were called in to help deal with Pettigrew's spirit should it have grown violent. Once all of them arrived Pettigrew's questioning continued._

_Pettigrew stated when asked that Sirius Black was innocent. The whole affair in which he was framed for the murder of twelve muggles and Pettigrew himself was staged in order to incriminate Black and get him out of the way. Pettigrew went on to say that he had even cut off his own finger to assure the public of the man's guilt, and that he himself had been the Potter's Secret Keeper, not Black as the world had been led to believe._

_Pettigrew's questioning went on further, and the ghost also revealed a couple of interesting facts. The first, and foremost after Black's innocence, would be that regarding young Harry Potter, the Boy-Who-Lived, who was also labelled as a Death Eater. _

_Whilst Harry Potter was placed in Azkaban mainly for breaching the Statute of Underage Sorcery, that in itself was in self-defence against a fully trained Death Eater whom he was later imprisoned with, within the same cell, Potter was later accused of being a Death Eater, having vanished, along with his wand, during an attack on Azkaban. This, however, has been proved false by Pettigrew's testimony._

_And finally we come to the last person Pettigrew talked about: Bellatrix Lestrange, or rather Black due to her husband's unfortunate demise at the hands of He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Name (another detail revealed by Pettigrew)_

_Although Pettigrew did not deny the fact that Bellatrix bore the Dark Mark, he did say that she was no longer a Death Eater. When asked to elaborate, Pettigrew said that Bellatrix had betrayed He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named by rescuing Harry Potter from the Dark Lord's, ultimately being caught, and then rescued by Potter, both of those two events leading to 'Lord Thingy' (as our esteemed Minister called Him numerous times) to suspect of Pettigrew's own betrayal. Being thought that he was a traitor by the Dark Lord, Pettigrew had been killed by the same person he had once called 'Master' and betrayed his best friends in order to do it._

_But Pettigrew does bring to light many interesting things. One Death Eater has completely changed her ways (if the fact that she had save our Saviour's life isn't proof, then nothing is) and the ministry has sent not one, but two innocent men into Azkaban without proper trial. This brings to light many serious doubts about the competency of the people that have been given power over us. Perhaps we should get a new Government. Or, perhaps, we should get a new Minister. In this reporter's opinion, a new Minister is almost certainly needed._

Harry and Sirius had both been shocked to say the least when they had come down that morning, only to find three apples out of the bowl and on the table next to a jar of raspberry jam and a jar of mint humbugs, however that shock was miniature compared to when they saw Bella on the floor, the _Daily Prophet_ grasped in her hand, the front page baring the exact same article as the one above.

Their shock shrank, of course, as their brains slowly began to process what they had read in the newspaper they had pried loose from Bella's hand, and slowly, though slightly quicker than before, grins spread across their faces as they realised what it meant for the two (well, three is you counted the unconscious Bella) of them. They were free. They were no longer wanted men. And the world knew it.

Pretty soon the grins on their faces stretched from ear to ear, Harry's being slightly larger as it meant he could attend Hogwarts again. Then he realised Bella was still unconscious.

"Enervate," He muttered, bringing her around in an instant. She sat up disorientated for a slight moment, then looked to Harry.

"Does this mean what I think it means?" she asked hopefully as she noticed the paper in Harry's hands, hardly daring to believe it.

"That depends on what you think it means," said a still grinning Sirius. "If you think that we've declared war on the moon, then it isn't."

Bella growled quietly, and grabbed the nearest thing to her, the jar of humbugs, and hurled it at him. It missed and hit the opposite wall, clattering uselessly on the floor thanks to an anti-shatter charm on the glass.

"You know what I mean!" she snapped.

"Oooh, moody!" Sirius taunted, and quickly dodged as the three apples and the jar of jam came at his head in quick succession. "Hey!"

Three days later, on the twenty eighth of January, in the Headmaster's office at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, Bella was tapping her fingers on Dumbledore's desk, Harry was trying to calm himself down enough so that he wouldn't accidentally change into his snidget form and Sirius was pacing, all in nervousness and anticipation. Dumbledore had managed to, somehow arrange for them to meet with a representative from the ministry that day.

A thousand questions kept running through their heads as they waited. Though they believed that Dumbledore wouldn't double cross them - it certainly wasn't in his best interests - who knew for certain that it wasn't some elaborate ploy by Fudge in an attempt to capture them? Of course, it was very complicated if it was, and would appear to the public that if it was just an attempt to capture them it would be disrespecting the dead.

What if, and this question came mainly from Bella's mind, the ministry believed that Sirius and Harry were innocent but Bella hadn't reformed? And they took her back to Azkaban? Which would inevitably be attacked by Voldemort once again, and so leaving her to face his wrath, all on her own.

What if the ministry decided to give them all a trial, but took them back to Azkaban to await it? What if- no, it wouldn't bear thinking about those things right then. It was already bad enough that they had started. If they were to carry on they would constantly be assuming the worst in the next couple of minutes before the representative was scheduled to arrive.

Harry glanced down at his watch impatiently. There were still precisely two minutes to go, and he was already as nervous as hell, his brain, despite his best efforts, going through all of the possibilities all over again. What would he be like in another two minutes? Would he accidentally change into his animagus form out of his nerves? Or would he simply explode from the nerves? Okay, so the second choice was unlikely (as far as he knew, you never could tell in the wizarding world), but it didn't help him in the slightest.

Harry glanced down at his watch again. One and a half minutes to go until the representative would be late. Why in Morgana's name hadn't they scheduled it earlier? At least it would be over by then! Of course, he would have gone through exactly the same things then, only slightly earlier in the day, so it would be possible that his nerves would have been dulled slightly due to sleepiness.

Ever so painstakingly slowly another minute left until the exact time they were supposed to arrive, which probably wouldn't be exact. The Ministry wasn't known for its promptness. In fact, they seemed to turn up early when you didn't want them to turn up at all, and turn up late when you wanted them to turn up as soon as possible. That was just one of their many more irritating, ah, qualities, right alongside sending innocent people to a place worse than hell.

Ten seconds left - nine - maybe they would be a few seconds early, Harry thought hopefully - six - five - or they would probably be about half an hour late - two - one - and.... nothing.

Harry, Sirius and Bella all glared at either the fireplace or the door, none of the three of them quite sure which entrance would have been used. Trust the ministry to not arrive exactly on time. Okay, so Sirius definitely wouldn't have, and Bella almost certainly wouldn't have gotten it down to the exact second, and Harry inevitably would have arrived a few minutes late, but that didn't count! These people (and the term is used loosely in most cases) were supposed to be running their country! And they couldn't even get anywhere at an arranged time! It was no small wonder so many people complained about it. They were so inconsiderate!

However, a few seconds later the door opened, and the representative walked in, putting a stop to their anger. The official looked decidedly nervous, probably the fact that he had drawn the short straw and was now faced with the unenvious task of giving two accused Death Eaters the news that they were free and that the ministry had made a mistake - and one of them his wand back so said wrongly accused ex-convict would undoubtedly end up cursing him - and to tell the other that, well, he'd rather not think about it at that point. Well, actually he hadn't drawn any straws, but Fudge had actually been too scared of informing them himself, so he had assigned the task to the first employee he had seen.

"Well, erm, Mr Potter, Mr and Miss Black, uh, I'm, ah, here on behalf of the, um, Ministry to, ah, urm," the official managed to stumble of the words quickly, hoping to get out of the room as quickly as he could. "Announce that, ah- meep!"

Bella had finally had enough of what he seemed to be having trouble saying, and now had her wand aimed directly between his eyes. The representative looked even more terrified than before.

"Hurry up and say what you've got to say before I decide to hex you into a hundred thousand pieces!"

"Announce that all charges have been dropped on Harry Potter and Sirius Black, and that most charges have been dropped on Bellatrix Black, the rest are to be dropped as soon as she has read and completed the conditions of her pardon in the letter that shall arrive by owl post on the twenty-ninth of January. Good day and here's your wand back Mr Black," the official said at such a speed it was hard for the three of them to understand, and almost immediately after throwing Sirius's wand in his general direction, the terrified man left.

"Bella, I think you scared him," Harry said, after blinking several times. Bella rolled her eyes and glared at him.

**A/N:** I would have uploaded this chapter last Monday, but there were a few reasons I didn't. The first was that I started redecorating my room, so I didn't have much chance all week to get on the computer. The second is that when I finally did get on to computer to put this up I found I had several annoying reviews remarking about the lengths of my chapters (okay, so nothing new there, but they were really patronising remarks) so I vowed to myself I would never put a chapter up ever again unless it reached 2,000 words, which I had to write another 1000 words for this chapter to meet this requirement. I suppose that point it good news for those of you who enjoy the longer chapters, considering the fact that now they'll be twice the length of before on average. Oh well, that's my excuses out of the way.

**coolone007-2:** Difficult questions to answer, those are. I'm fairly sure I will send Harry back to Hogwarts. As for Hermione, she's been busy with school work and a, uh, few other things that she's managed to keep secret from the world.

**Blackhand/Exzlayer:** Thanks! It's great to see people who don't mind short chapters!

**Finn Mcgovern:** Hmm, good point about the prophecy, I really should start to focus on that I suppose, the elves too. And probably Harry's view on Dark Magic, and practically everything else you've mentioned in your review... but that's going in the sequel, mainly. Yes, weird cravings are a sign of pregnancy, and one of the few I know about.

**NatalieJ:** Ah yes, stupid school with their stupid education and their stupid GCSEs. And do you know the unfairness of it all? THEY'RE TALKING ABOUT ABOLISING THEM! Anywayz, longer chapters are on their way, I swear, and so are the kiddies!

**MMockler4Tonks:** Fine, I wasn't planning on giving Bella any kids in the AU version though. I just can't see a fic where Harry and Bella are together and on Voldemort's side where they have kids.

**Silverscale:** Thank you! But... who's Ranma?

**harrysgal8:** Oh, and where is that?

**EmeraldThrone:** Well I was having a tough time with writing! Plus I wanted to get in a cliffhanger, for some unknown reason. Does this chapter compensate though? And I'll review yours as soon as I can find your profile...

**Amscray:** Yes, it was a nightmare, one that popped up out of nowhere. Oh... that Napoleon XIV sounds kinda... indescribable.

**Dana:** Well, I can't guarantee the first one, but I'm certain I'll write people's reactions once they find out.

**Nutty AL:** lol, um, I'm not quite going to go for disguise bit, or Bella enrolling as a transfer student at Hogwarts and getting sorted into Gryffindor, but Harry and Bella having more romance seems like a good idea at this point in time.

**Ryua Malfoy:** Lol, I'm not quite sure where I got that combination. I think I had been thinking about the feasts at Hogwarts at the time (there's usually mint humbugs there), picked out a jam and glanced over at a fruit bowl, and the answer struck me. Yes, Peter is dead, and as you can probably tell from this chapter, he was trying to complete his unfinished business.

**Potts:** It's simple enough, someone in the ministry leaked out the information, though it isn't completely obvious.

**Fire Gazer, Shadowface:** Thanks!

**Kittyofwonder:** For me, this chapter is super long!

**A. Person:** Okay, fine, you can wait until I actually announce it. At least you've got further in the guessing than anyone else. Yep, Bella does get pregnant, and it's great to know I've written this in a believable way. Even if I have put people horribly OOC. Yes, a cookie would be cool... if you've still got them...

**NateP:** Yep, the chapter they find out in will definitely be interesting.

**LadyRaven13:** That she is.

**Joe Mama:** Oh, right... I'll be sure to correct that sometime...

**What the Hell?:** Yes, that was a chapter, and if you're gonna critise me for the length of my last chapter, I can assure you it's longer than the original versions of the first few chapters, several of which failed to reach 500 words.

**LOL:** Uh, in case you haven't noticed, this fic has a word count of over 40,000, not just 20 words.


	30. Chapter 30

**A/N:** Well, so sorry for the delay, but I rewrote this about five times, never satisfied with it, until the fifth time, when things really started going wrong with my computer, so I lost the entire thing! Bloody computers! And to top it all off, I got writers' block half way through!

Oh well, something did come out of this experience, something which could be taken as either bad or good. I am now going back to what I used to do a few months ago of updating anything at any given point. I've stuck to updating in a set order for a while now, so whilst it was good for me to stick to a schedule for any amount of time, I do believe it was harder for me to write chapters because of it. See? Being organised helped, but didn't do me much good.

**Disclaimer: **I never said I owned Harry Potter. Did you say I did?

**Chapter thirty**

"Go on, get a move on, I haven't got all day."

Bella turned and scowled at the stern-faced mediwitch who seemed to hate her for no apparent reason and was also hurrying her through the doors into the Long Term Residents' ward at St Mungo's. In the letter she had received from the ministry about the conditions for her freedom with which she had to comply, it had told her that she had to visit St Mungo's and try to help the Longbottom's. She hadn't been looking forwards to it, and now she almost wondered if it was too late to return the Voldemort's services in order to get out of facing the people she had driven insane.

"I'm going, I'm going," Bella growled and allowed herself to be pushed along the ward by the mediwitch.

The Long term Residents' ward was different from all the other wards in the building in that it had been personalised by the patients residing there with photos and the like.

On the way down to the end of the ward where two of the patients who had stayed the longest so far she passed a blond-haired, blue-eyed moron who asked if she wanted a signed photo ("With joined up writing too!"), a wizard who was murmuring to himself whilst rocking back and forth and a witch who had a fur covered face and was growling at odd intervals, amongst other patients.

Finally they reached the last two occupied beds on the ward. On one sat a woman who was staring at around with a vacant and vague expression, She had a thin and worn face, wide eyes and white, wispy hair. On the other bed was a man whose face was as thin and worn, whose eyes were equally as wide, and whose hair was equally as wispy and white as the woman's, only he was laying on the bed, staring upwards unfocusedly at the ceiling. Bella would recognise them anywhere, even though they had changed a lot over the past fifteen years: Alice and Frank Longbottom.

"Oh Gilderoy! No!" The healer who was forcing Bella along the right path had suddenly turned and ran off to stop the moronic blond from signing the walls. Evidently Bella was on her own from then on.

She gulped and walked further down towards the second but last bed. Alice Longbottom was on that bed, so maybe she wouldn't freak out as much as her husband might if Bella managed to get a response out of them.

Alice Longbottom's vague stare wandered around the room as Bella approached, then it met Bella's eyes, and though they had previously held insanity, they now held a look of absolute fear. Bella smiled, in an attempt to reassure the witch on the bed, but all it did was increase her fear to the extent that she whimpered and dived off and under the bed. Bella sighed. It was irritating, but had actually gone better than she had expected. At least Alice had responded.Granted, it wasn't a positive response, but it was still a response.

Figuring that she had gotten enough of a response out of the witch under the bed, Bella walked onto the next bed, the one that held Frank Longbottom, but before she would get close enough for him to see her, she was interrupted by a voice from behind her.

"Stay away from my husband."

Though the voice was rough and hoarse, it was evident that it was filled with far more hate than Bella had thought possible... On second thoughts, maybe not, Voldemort could add much more venom to his voice. That could be because he looked like he was part snake though.

Bella turned quietly and came face to face with an extremely pissed off Alice Longbottom and an invariably shocked mediwitch. The mediwitch looked from Bella to Alice, then back again, before speaking in absolute shock.

"You got her to speak."

Harry paced around the living room of Grimmauld Place as nervous as hell as he waited for Bella to return from St Mungo's. He felt as if he was being paranoid whenever he thought of it, but he couldn't felt believing that some huge, and probably terrible revelation would come from Bella's visit from the wizarding hospital.

"Harry, will you stop pacing? As much as I hate the carpet, I don't think pacing with wear a hole in it," Sirius joked. He had been watching Harry for the last half an hour, trying to do something - Harry wasn't quite sure what it was yet, if he had failed to get started yet because of so many distractons, or if there was anything Sirius was trying to do at all - whilst Harry worried over Bella. "Relaz already. She's in St Mungo's! If she gets hurt at all they can heal her there!"

"Oh Merlin, what if you're right? What if she does get hurt?" Harry responded, and Sirius sighed.

Harry certainly hadn't been worrying about anything happening to Bella up until this point. All he had been worrying about was big and possibly horrible revelations that might not exists. Now he was worrying about Bella getting hurt too.

Who knew what would actually happen? The ministry had ordered Bella to go and try to help out Neville's parents, but what if Bella did help? What if they remembered everything that happened and wanted revenge? Oh Merlin, what if they killed Bella? Harry didn't know what he'd do. What if-

No! Harry cut his thoughts off beforwe they could get much further. Nothing would happen to Bella, and if something did... well, the healer at St Mungo's would be able to heal her in no time.

And he was being paranoid, anyway. Nothing would come out of Bella's trip to see the Longbottoms other the remote possibility that the Longbottoms would wake up. Nothing else would happen. Nothing at all.

How very wrong Harry was.

An hour later Bella walked up Grimmauld Place in a state of shock. It seemed so surreal as she kocked on the door of number twelve and woke the sleeping portrait of her Aunt.

"_SCUM! MUTANTS! FILTH! HALF-BREEDS! SQUIBS! BEGONE FROM THE HOUSE OF MY FATHERS!" came the voice of the portrait._

"_SHUT UP YOU OLD HAG! NO ONE CARES WHAT YOU HAVE TO SAY!"_ That was Sirius. But before Bella could hear more of the screaming match that was sure to take place, that door was opened by Harry, who was looking as if he had been worrying himself ragged.

Not knowing what else to do at Bella flung herself at Harry and hugged him tightly. Harry, not sure what to do, brought her inside so he could find out what happened. When Bella finally felt that she could talk, she started to explain what happened.

"Well," Bella sniffed a bit, completely overcome with emotions. "After I arrived I managed to get Alice Longbottom to talk... I was going to leave a bit after that but..."

_-------Flashback-------_

"_Ms Black, before you leave, we're going to have to check you, just to see if you have picked up anything dieases or anything within the hospital. It's a new precedure, just been introduced," said the mediwitch, having only just recovered from the fact that Bella had managed to get Alice to talk in time to see that she was turning to leave. Bella turned back._

"_Uh, sure."_

_The witch nodded and pulled out her wand and murmured a spell. About a minute later something must have happened, because the other witch's eyes widened in shock, then in disbelief._

"_That can't be.."_

_The witch cast the spell again. It must have given the same result as it had a similar reaction from the witch._

"_P-please wait here a moment."_

_The mediwitch rushed off for a moment then returned with another witch, probably her superior or something. The newcomer cast the same spell, and then turn to the original healer. The two nodded._

_-------End Flashback-------_

"So? What did they say?" Harry asked, unsure at what Bella was trying to say and what could possibly so unusual that two fully trained mediwitches were shocked by it.

"Harry," Bella said, looking straight into his eyes. "I'm pregnant."

"Oh..." Harry said in response. "That's nice..."

Harry fainted.

**A/N:** Sorry for the cliffhanger, and the long wait, and it beingnot as long as I would have wished it to be, but, well, writers' block sucks. Next chapter, since I've given up updating in any particular order, should be up pretty soon, since I have now over come You-Know-What.

**coolone007-2:** Yes, there's someone in Hermione's life too. I just need to work out who.

**Paladin3030:** So that's where you've been! I was wondering! Sorry, Neville hasn't blasted Bella. He might do at some point.

**lucas13:** I'll try!

**Silverscale:** Oh... Nope, never heard of Ranma. Or, at least, I don't think I have. It could be because I hardly ever watch anime, or TV in general.

**LadyBlackIce01:** I have no idea. Maybe.

**Amscray:** Alastor was visiting them? And I think you're right about it being Ms not miss.

**LOL Again:** It was not idiotic! But thanks anyway.

**Blackhand/Exzlayer:** Thanks! And I intend to continue to write.

**harrysgal8:** Dammit! I was hoping someone would tell me where it's going!

**Ryua Malfoy:** Lord Thingy is a wonderful thing to call Voldemort, isn't it? Lovely habit to get into, one which I'll probably get into soon for fun, then will be unable to break. Hell, give me a few months and I'll be flinching at 'Voldemort'.

**JoeHundredaire:** You actually worked that out? Wow... Thanks! I think...

**EmeraldThrone:** Nope, still can't find you. And that is a fun thought - a fight between all the characters you mentioned and more. Could be interesting.

**Shadowface:** Well, I tried to update quickly. It just doesn't always work out.

**Fire Gazer:** Glad you liked that line. I like it too.

**e:** Well, if you insist.

**A. Person:** eats cookie heeheehee! Reverse phycology got you to find out what Ehno's name means. And you were right! Ehno means protector! So Ehno is protecting both Harry and Sirius, but also some more people. If you want to exact answer, try to think broadly, very broadly indeed.

**DJ Rodriguez:** Yes, Harry and Bella are free. And I'm female, not male, as bro implies if you haven't guessed by now from my yahoo name thing from the group.

**sappjody:** I plan to do another.

**Nutty Al:** Those pairings do get a bit repetitive.

**Monoceros:** Thanks! It's great to know people find this interesting.

**athenakitty:** Fudgie might be booted, there might be compensation for Harry and Sirius, and the land speed record for the worker was very fast, approaching the speed of sound, I believe.

**android181:** I'll try.

**kittyofwonder:** Harry and Bella can go off and get married, huh? It's very possible. As for Harry's homework... I think he's going to be buried in it. And Hermione in love with Harry? Ick, I am not a fan of Harry/Hermione fics. Besides, Hermione's already with someone, I'm just not saying who until I know myself. Anyway... the baby's/babies' story should be fun.


	31. Chapter 31

**A/N:** Okay, I could have put this up something like... on the 27th of December :looks guilty: but I had other things going on. But everyone can thank the act that I'm feeling generous today due to comic relief and the fact my birthday's tomorrow. Oh well, this is the last chapter in the fic, so here it is.

**Disclaimer:** There is a reason this is called fanfiction, you know.

**Chapter thirty-one**

Harry woke up several minutes later to see Bella and Sirius staring at him in surprise.

"I had the weirdest dream," he said, feeling some how detached from reality. "Bella told me she was pregnant and doxies started sprinkling glitter everywhere."

"Harry, it wasn't a dream," Bella said, then paused. "Okay, the doxy bit was, but I am pregnant."

"Oh, okay. Now please excuse while I faint again."

And he did. Bella and Sirius looked at each other for a moment in silence. Then Sirius decided to speak.

"I would have thought Moony would have been the one to faint at the news, personally."

"Why?" asked Bella. "He wasn't involved in anyway."

"I don't know, he just seems the kind of person who would faint at hearing his dead friend's son knocked up the former servant of the person who killed said friend and wife, and servant of said person happened to be responsible for seemingly killing off the Godfather of said dead friend's son's Godfather, even though said dead friend's son's Godfather was actually transported to Italy."

"Shut up."

"You asked."

"So? No need to tell me. Besides, Harry's coming round now."

It was true. Harry was waking up again, and he at seeing their faces again, he blinked.

"You know, I just dreamt that Bella told me I was pregnant, doxies were sprinkling glitter everywhere, Bella telling me that it wasn't a dream, except for the doxy bit, then more doxies and Sirius saying something about Italy," he said, then caught sight of their faces and groaned. "It's true, isn't it? You are pregnant, aren't you Bella?" At their affirmatives Harry thought of something. "Who's the father then?"

Sirius burst into out right laughter then, unable to contain it at all. Harry stared at him in shock and Bella in amusement.

"You faint twice in as many minutes after hearing that Bella's pregnant, and only now you think to ask who the father is?"

"Yeah," Harry scowled. "So who is it?"

"You!"

"Oh..."

Harry fainted for the third time in ten minutes. Sirius and Bella groaned. If this was how _Harry_ was reacting, then who knew how everyone else would?

News always travels at an unbelievable speed. Why it travels at such a speed is a mystery, but it is fact that news travels far faster than practically anything else, as Harry, Bella and everyone else who had known about Bella's pregnancy soon found out.

You see, the day after Bella announced to Harry that she was pregnant news, like it always does, leaked out to the press about it, and, as you can imagine, it was a big story. It made the front page, like every other story concerning the Boy-Who-Lived did. However, this one was slightly larger, as it brought to the public's attention the fact that their saviour had, for lack of a better and equally eye-opening phrase, had knocked up an ex-Death Eater. Whilst hiding from both the Ministry and Voldemort no less.

Now, as you can probably imagine without too much strain, this caused widespread shock amongst most of the female population of the wizarding world, as well as a small portion of the male. Many howlers were received by Bella from outraged Potter-fans across the world, several in languages she had no hope of understanding.

However, don't be mistaken into thinking that Bella was the only one who received howlers. Harry, too, received his fair share, all from outraged fans who were demanding to know what he saw in Bella (the slut, whore, bitch, trash and countless other insult witches and wizards could come up with within a short stretch of time) and forgetting to leave an address to reply with.

Yet, as bad as these things were, nothing was as bad as Remus's reaction. He even went to Grimmauld Place in order to deliver it in person. But, after several minutes of yelling (at Harry, Bella _and_ Sirius too, mind), he finally calmed down enough to listen to reason. After a couple of minutes of reasoning he finally got over his anger at finding that Harry had gotten Bella pregnant enough to congratulate them.

Compared to Remus' reaction, everyone else's' were really mild, and were dealt with in no time at all. All in all things started to look really good. It had been decided that Harry should go back to Hogwarts in December, as a sixth year. He wouldn't live in the Gryffindor tower though. He would live in separate rooms with Bella, who would be going to regular check ups at St Mungo's to make sure the child was okay. Things were going great for them.

_Eight Months Later_

Harry paced up and down the waiting room on the 22nd of September, as nervous as he could possibly be, cursing the stupid rule that stated that no one who wasn't giving birth or was a healer who was required to be present was not permitted into the birthing theatre whilst someone was giving birth.

Pacing up and down, he could not believe Bella was already giving birth, that he was about to be a father. He wasn't too sure he was glad about it though. He was just seventeen. It was a lot of responsibility, a family, and he wasn't too sure he could handle. But he had to try for the kid's sake, and for Bella's.

"Mr Potter?" The twin doors outside the birthing theatre swung open and a healer walked out. "You can go in to see your-"

Harry did not wait for the healer to finish. He rushed passed her into the theatre and over to Bella. He smiled when he reached her side, and saw her holding twins, two beautiful babies, his babies.

"Do you want to hold one of them?" Bella whispered, so as not to wake the children. Harry nodded. Bella passed one of them to him and he looked down at the child in his arms. "Your holding our son," Bella whispered again, amused by his awe. "This is our daughter."

Harry looked at Bella, a smile huge on his face. Over the past eight months or so since Bella had told him that she was pregnant he had had doubts over whether he would make a good father or not. Now all those doubts vanished as he looked down at his twin son and daughter, both yet to be named. Oh yes, he was sure he would make a good father.

**A/N:** Well, there you have it. Fic finished, over, done. :sniffles: I didn't want it to end, but I knew I was going to. Oh well, maybe I'll have the sequel up soon. But now that I think about it, near enough a year ago I put a fic on hold (oops) and roughly that long ago still I finished another fic, and said I'd put a prequel up to it, but never did.

And I love to put a review response to ever single person who reviewed the fic since the last chapter, but since it would take up a lot of space and a lot of time, so I decided that I would create a site on tripod to put up the responses to all the reviews on all my fics. It should save space, and will probably be up and running (with the reveiw responses to this fic at least) by Monday, so check my profile then for a link.


End file.
